


Want to be the sun and the sky

by somagni



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: BDSM, Belts, Blue Kryptonite, Bottom Bruce Wayne, Cock Cages, Continuity What Continuity, Death Threats, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Double Anal Penetration, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humiliation, Isolation, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Memory Loss, Protective Bruce Wayne, Protective Clark Kent, Rimming, Rough Oral Sex, Self-Esteem Issues, Submissive Clark Kent, Top Bruce Wayne, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:47:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somagni/pseuds/somagni
Summary: Clark and Bruce are becoming closer than they've ever been, what best way to test their budding connection like a good old fashioned death threat. What happens when that threat becomes a third wheel. Can Clark be everything to everyone? Will he be allowed to be what he wants to be?
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	1. You break it you buy it

"I'd ask if you'd like to talk about it but-"  
"I don't l-" like he was going to say like but what he liked didn't matter, it mattered what kept people safe. "I don't trust how you look at her." He saw the insult, not in Clark's expression, maybe just in the way his irises got a bit darker round the curve, he didn't like his character being questioned. Clark's likes mattered about as much as Bruce's. "You need to stay away from her Clark."  
"And how do I look at her?" Clark came in off of Bruce's balcony straight into his room. "Like she's a person B? She _is_ a person, a threat . . . Somewhat sure but-"  
"Like you know you should stay away from her but won't." Bruce knew that look, he lived that look, It's how he looked at Clark. He should have staid away kept a distance, and he had, he had until about a month or so back and he regretted it, Clark regretted it, if he had to figure the cosmos themselves regretted it.

-Month back-

"You're going to run out of excuses B. Let someone else watch me." Clark with some effort sat up in the med bay grinning at the door Bruce was posted by. "Gotham must miss you by now."  
"You're awake."  
"Detective through and through."  
"You've been awake." Bruce entered the room.  
"I've been conscious, I spent a good hour or two focusing on remembering all my fingers and toes and how to move them." He raised his hands wiggling them, proud smile on his face. "You can go home now B."  
"You . . . Were hurt."  
" _Am_ hurt, I _was_ dying now I'm not. I might miss tomorrow's brief less you want to wheel me -" It had been a full day, did Clark know it the sun had rose and set since he opened his eyes? No he sat up goofy ready for anything smile and all.  
"Do you want to hurt?" It was a snarl, it was scolding but it was . . . Wounded.  
"Not particularly." Clark shrugged, rolling a shoulder, he'd be at tomorrow's breifing, maybe he would sit but he'd get there.  
"Then why are you so reckless?"  
"I'm not." The cavalier smile left his face, he didn't get himself half killed for kicks. "I had to-"  
"If you want to hurt so bad, to test the limits of that steel your made of there's other ways to do it."  
"If I hadn't done what I did, people would have died! Are you going to argue I should value my life, or even lives of people I _could_ save in the future over the ones right in front of me? Huh? You would have done the same thing B."  
"I think . . . The thought should pass your mind. I think you should . . . Want to see another day."  
"Reckless doesn't stick so now I'm suicidal?!" Clark snorted, insulted from his head to his toes. "What is it? Really? What are you trying to-" Clark was cut off as he noticed Bruce's hand begin to move, he stilled as it came close to his face, he stared at it waiting for Bruce to try to slap some of that sense the bat figure he lacked into him, then it went higher pushed into the part in Clark's hair. "What?"  
"There's being selfless and being . . ." Bruce's molars were grinding, he had words, they just didn't want to come out of the shadows. "You were built to endure Clark, not break. Sometimes-"  
"Everyone breaks a bit, it's about putting yourself back together." Clark smiled confused but if the boy scout wasn't patient, wasn't indulgent, hadn't even said a word about Bruce's tightening grip in his hair.  
"Sometimes I think you break so others don't have to."  
"We all do B. You have the bad back to prove it." Clark could have brushed off allowing his neck to go lax, allowing Bruce to tug harder on his less than peak health but he didn't, he met it head on. "You're jealous." Clark's smile didn't seem to know what to do with itself, sliding from one side of his face to the other, it didn't fall but it didn't look comfortable.  
"What?" Bruce went to release Clark's hair in a fright but Clark grabbed his wrist, squeezed.  
" _You_ want to break me." Did Clark think he hated him that much? The hurt in the swinging smile implied that was the case, Clark just didn't know if he was upset at Bruce for hating him or himself for expecting any different.  
"No that's not-"  
"Prove that you _can_ , why do the villains get all the-"  
"That's not . . ." Bruce's face almost softened. "They don't appreciate it." Maybe that was it, no one saw how well Clark broke, how even and clean and selfless he did so, no one saw the beauty in it. People praised Clark for his never say die, can do attitude, that he always got up and tried again, no one praised the break. The vulnerability, the trust that something would build from the ruble. Bruce had been hyper focused on that and it . . . Alarmed him.  
"Oh?" Clark chuckled a bit dry. "You'd revel in it? Maybe make a scrapbook of the moment?" Clark looked slightly less hurt, more confused, especially when Bruce's free hand went to his throat, thumb along the collum of a pulse not as strong as it normally was. "B?"  
"I'd thank you." He just continued thumbing that line. "Let go of my hand Clark." Which was somewhat of a rich demand seeing as he'd initiated all this contact.  
"Or what?" Clark gripped tighter still. What the fuck were they doing? What sort of alpha male dick measuring contest was this? "Or you'll break me?" His eyebrows rose but not with bite, almost playful.  
"Not now I won't, you're still hurt."  
"But later? You promise B? Promise you'll try your very hardest." Clark wasn't purring he wasn't a cat but it hit Bruce's ears that way a warm, welcoming request of him. To do what? Hadn't Clark just been sullen a second ago? Kryptonians did recover fast.  
"You said you don't want to hurt." Bruce's throat suddenly felt tight.  
"Well I don't enjoy being posted up in the med bay. I still have not one but two lives to lead. Your thanks, as rare as they come, are not worth life threatening injuries B." Clark did let go of Bruce's wrist, started to push at the palm at his throat. "It was a fun thought while it-" Clark was coming to his senses, pulling back that warm welcoming request and Bruce missed it already, was bitter over it's loss.  
_'Mine.'_ A flare of possessiveness hit him, how dare Clark take away that warmth, hog it all to himself, why wouldn't he share? Bruce's face crashed into Clark's, his lips were brutish and blunt but Clark didn't push, didn't bristle, he sat stunned for a moment but Clark was too open for his own good, let his lips break just enough. Patient, indulgent, a beautiful break that Bruce seized, letting his tongue slide in, claim him, thank him.

"And if I could break you without sending you to the med bay? Your opinion would change?" Bruce bit at Clark's lip and met resistance, not by Clark's protest but by his biology, his lips were warm and soft yet . . . You could bounce a bullet of them, Bruce's teeth stood no chance.  
"Like I said." Clark pulled back, wanting but not expecting, not requesting. "A fun idea but . . . If all that will satiate you is me breaking . . ." Clark laid back in bed, he looked cold, looked hurt, he looked distant. "You're barking up the wrong cottonwood." He unabashedly rutted just once up at nothing, just to regain his composure and then Clark just inches away might as well have been miles. "Sorry B." Bruce had reminded the alien how very alien he was and it did not _destroy_ Clark, simply had him feeling, alone, distant, unable to give even though he wanted to. Which had _Bruce_ feeling like shit, Clark endured that everyday, his entire life and Bruce had come in while the man was already low and shoved his nose in it.  
"It's what I want." Bruce straightened up determined. "Which means I won't stop until I get it." He didn't smile, Bruce didn't smile but he could hope some of the fire in his stare warmed Clark just a bit.

-Present-

"Leave her be Clark, she's playing you, she wants you to view her as some big doe eyed damsel that needs saving and once she's got you close-" She would try to break him.  
"Or, she could genuinely be under his control and fighting it. Why is that harder to believe? Why is it that she must blindly hate my guts?!"  
"It's not . . . It's better to be prepared for the worst than run fool hardy for the best."  
"It's foolish not to try for the best." Clark grinned at the put out sigh that got from Bruce, Clark hadn't won so much as Bruce found no pleasure in debating a brick wall.  
"If Misery doesn't kill you hope will."

-Earlier That day-

“Could still be fan mail.” Wally offered.  
“I’ll send in some drones to undo the . . . it’s really just held together with packing tape?” Victor questioned. That was . . . surprisingly mundane, either it should be ominous lead chains or some kitchy over the top wrapping paper, bow and all.  
“Five o’clock on a Friday.” Wally shrugged.  
“There’s a _woman_ in there.” Clark reminded both quipping men, suggesting a bit more compassion and a lot more urgency. He could see her, more importantly he could see her lungs working hard and then not at all, hard and then not at all. Clark wanted to open the door, but he was rational and calculative as the rest, it was a trap, it was clearly a trap of some sort. Maybe she had some pathogen, or was a trained assassin waiting to strike, could be she was a telepath and wanted in their heads. A woman in a box, sadly or otherwise, was not just a woman in a box, it was a threat. “She has an oxygen supply but it _is_ running out.” Threat or not there was a woman _dying_ in that box, morals were tricky business.

They stared from a safe distance, waiting for neuro toxin to pour from the creases, or for some augmented human to try to break the triple enforced door, chomping at the bit to rip out their throats. A drone was sent in through a vent. It opened the seemingly innocuous package sitting in the hall's mail room. Out spilled a sea of packing peanuts and a semi conscious woman, she peeled off her oxygen mask and coughed, sputtered then sighed, picking some foam from her hair. She waved at the 'eye' of the drone. It was scanning her, biometrics seemed that of an ordinary human, her face didn't ping off of any most wanted lists. "Who are you?" That was a voice of gravel, of grit, of the bat.  
"People-" She rubbed some vertigo out of her eyes. "Call me Misery." The drone was searching, records, news articles, dark web boards for such a moniker.  
"What was your plan? Did you really think you'd infiltrate the justice league via the postal service?"  
"I thought I'd get your attention, mission accomplished." She smiled and it wasn't mad or malicious it was such an . . . Ordinary smile.  
"Well you have our attention what do you want?" Clark's voice was far less . . . Combative, maybe even curious, it had been quite some time since they've had such brazen company and the fact that it was someone so . . . Seemingly ordinary was different to be sure.  
"Before I explain what's going on I feel you need some context."  
"The police are on their way, you have till they get here to talk." Bruce was far less keen on guests.  
"I already tried to explain it to them, they didn't take me seriously!"  
"Great she's a nut case." Bruce sighed after removing his finger from the com, there was three floors separating the Leauge from this . . . Ordinary threat.  
"We're listening. Explain it to us." Clark took control of the conversation. Good cop bad cop, that should work on an ordinary threat.  
"I will be the death of you." She stated as if it was fact, rational, plausible inevitable fact.  
"I'm sorry?"  
“I’m going to be the death of superman.” Her expression changed to something sort of pleading. “I don’t want to be!"  
"Ok pause. You skimmed a few pages, how do you think you'll kill superman." Wally's snuck his way to the mic.  
"If I obsess on something I'll do it, I'll have it, I'll figure it out, no matter how long it takes, no matter the cost, I do not stop unless I'm called off. I was just regular neurotic but . . . That was . . . Tweaked, conditioned, inhanced. Kathy bates has nothing on me."  
"What?"  
"Misery . . . The movie? That's why . . . they call me Misery." She sighed in a tone that implied the reference was not her idea and she didn't love explaining it.  
"You're going to . . . Stalk me to death?" Clark couldn't help but chuckle, maybe even a bit of humbled blush in there.  
"You don't believe me either, dammit." She ran her hands into her ice blonde hair and tugged. "How can I prove it to you? That I mean it that I will-"  
"But you don't . . . Want to? You can't . . . Call yourself off, stop focusing on . . . Killing me? It's not good for your health I assure you." Clark still sounded compassionate but the last sentence couldn't be heard as anything but a threat.  
"My handler had a heart attack years ago, lucky me." She stumbled to her feet and started pacing. "He knew my call and calm, how did that madman figure it out?! I was . . . Normal, I just wanted to be normal for a little while longer." The pacing got faster, her turns sharper. "He doesn't think I'll succeed but he couldn't resist, figures it will be a laugh to see me try, to die trying. But what if he's wrong what if-"  
"Who?" Bruce frowned, he already knew, heard the not so subtle calling card in there, he just needed her to confirm it.  
"The Joker. It will bruise the boyscout blindside the bat." She sighed. "You need to either contain me . . . Somewhere or . . . Kill me, that's how we fix this." She sat back down.  
"Cops are here." Wally pointed at the street view camera. "She's not going to scratch supes, we could just-"  
"Do you have a plan? Instructions on how to kill superman?" Bruce would not underestimate Joker's penchant for complicated multi tiered plans. He was using this woman to get to superman, to get to _him_ , it was always to hurt the bat. _How_? What could this woman do to the man of steel? Did she have powers she could hide from them? _Why_? Why drag in Clark? To distract Bruce from what? This woman was a smokescreen, she had to be, the Joker had something else up his sleeve, he always did. There were far too many open ends here.  
"Plan's a work in progress. Step one, get in your heads, haven't hatched much beyond that but . . . Doesn't matter . . . I'll figure it out . . . I've got all the time in the world, unless you stop me." She stared at her own palms. "Please stop me."  
"We will put her in a containment room, run tests, we can’t let her loose till we know what we're dealing with. Superman stay clear of her." There was no affirmation. "You hear me?"  
"I heard you." Clark thought for a moment staring at the woman, it didn't sit well cowering from such an ordinary being. Yet he wouldn't let his pride cause him to put himself or the leauge in unnecessary danger, Bruce was right, they needed more information. Though there was information gathered Bruce's way, mining through facts, statistics, informants and there was Clark's way he was a reporter by trade, an interview wouldn't hurt. _'More bees with honey.'_

-present-

"I'd rather die of it than live without it." This was a fight, Clark should storm out wisk off into the night, that's how fights worked, except not with Clark, infuriatingly not with Clark. The man came up behind Bruce, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand at attention. Clark just rested his head on Bruce's shoulder, wrapped his arms around the stoic man's waist.  
"I hate when you do that"  
"Hug you? No you don't." Clark hummed happily, this was how Clark fought, he was honey to Bruce's vinegar. "Hate that you don't hate it maybe." He bit on Bruce's ear, couldn't bounce a bullet off Bruce's exposed skin, there was no way to work out the shell of one's ear, the pressure was real, was firm, strong, it was Clark.

-Earlier in the day-  
She was right, she'd gotten into his head. _'Just a human, just a person what could she do? To me, to something like me. Could she kill me? Could she even hurt me?'_ In the sterile containment room she looked even less menacing, curled up in a corner she looked, small, vulnerable, weak. _'Could she ever even get close enough to touch me?'_ He noticed that the room wasn't entirely empty, there was an untouched meal and bottle of water. “It’s not poisioned.” He wasn’t under Bruce’s thumb if he wanted to use the com he would. She opened her eyes for a second, staring just a bit off from where he was actually standing on the otherside of a two way mirror. “You should drink.”  
“No, I should . . .” He would have heard her if she had even muttered the end of that sentence, she hadn't.  
"You shouldn't punish yourself, this isn't your fault. You came to us for help, you did the right thing, you're doing everything you can to not kill me and I apreciate that, I like not being dead." He paused for a chuckle he did get a wry smirk. "I don't think you're a bad person."  
"I'm not even really a person." She sighed.  
"What?" No he could see it, blood, organs, a beating heart, a human skeletal structure.  
"I'm just a skill, that's all. That's all anyone has ever-" She shook her head. "You shouldn't talk to me. Leave me alone." He knew what she had been getting at, feeling that she was more what she did than who she was, if superman wasn't super how many people would care about his character, his personality? Would care he existed at all?  
"A wheelbarrow isn't conflicted." He offered some advice his mother had given to him.  
"What?"  
"If your objective is being the death of me, but you don’t want to . . . _that_ bit . . . that’s gotta be you right? A person who doesn’t want to be the death of superman.” Glass half full.  
“Or someone so focused on being the death of you they're trying to get you to let your guard down.” She and Bruce would get along. “You should . . . leave me alone.” She reiterated.  
“If I leave you alone will you drink that water?” He could tell she was dehydrated, the glossy look in her eyes, the slower pump to her heart.  
“No.” She and Bruce would be best friends.

-Present-

"Enough." Bruce didn't hate it but he didn't want it per se, or felt it wasn't for him, the soft nuzzling of Clark's cheek against his. He didn't hate it yet he wanted to push it to the point it broke, he wanted to crack it open and examine it's inside, the warm melted core.  
"And if I say it isn't?" Clark pulled his face back slightly, likely to place a kiss at the back of Bruce's head but that left his neck exposed, Bruce reached blind behind him, gripped at Clark's throat, gripping at steel that shouldn't budge, yet when he took purposefully stumblings step back Clark followed, when his hip twisted so they fell to the bed Clark let himself take both their weight, this was how Clark fought, by allowing, each give made Bruce want to break him more. To the point Clark didn't allow, just was, just existed, an exploding star.  
"Then I'll make it so you can't say anything at all." He felt Clark's edge he didn't ask for leave him, some of that steel soften.  
"I'll never get used to this feeling." Clark was still smiling as Bruce twisted, hand still holding on that throat, that pulse, on hope that bled. "It's on Bruce." Clark always chuckled at this bit, when Bruce slowly removed his palm and looked down, saw that collar that had latched on so pretty, so perfect, with just enough blue kryptonite to let Clark play by the same rules as everyone else, to be ordinary. Just enough worn leather for Bruce to play as if Clark was his.


	2. Fill in the gap

"Are you here to talk or just have sex?" Clark had heard Bruce enter his apartment while he showered, he'd thought of other less crass greetings buy this one felt right.  
"What do you think?" Well Bruce hadn't torn the towel from him and mocked his modesty so Clark figureded the probability was about sixty forty.  
"That it doesn't matter to you what I think." Clark wasn't smiling, Bruce could fix that if Clark let him, if he wanted him to.  
"If you have something to say spit it out." He'd make Clark smile but he didn't want any surprises, any rouge words he wasn't expecting. Bruce was well versed in angry hate sex, it could be great, surprise angry hate sex . . . Could _still_ be great but far more injury prone, he promised Clark no med bay. Clark glared for a few moments but it didn't hold, Clark had sharp lovely angles to his face but Bruce could always see his features natural desire to be soft. "Or did you need me to make you spit and swear?" Bruce breached the gap between the pair.  
"Don't wake the neighbors." Clark didn't live in a mansion, there were thin walls to his apartment.  
"I won't." The collar found it's way around Clark's neck, Bruce grinned at the give of Clark's ass under his fingernails as he pulled Clark forward, he kissed the tail of Clark's hiss as the hold grew harder. "You will. Gonna speak your mind, till you lose it, till I fuck you so hard it spills cross that talented tounge of yours."

-Earlier in the day-  
“Your delivered asasin is a black hat.” For having information on his side Bruce looked grumpier than usual and he’d looked plenty grumpy the three days it had taken him to get that information.  
“Like Zatanna?”  
“Kansas you _are_ an investigative reporter you know what a black hat _is_ . . . right?” Clark did, he just liked when he made Bruce’s blood pressure rise just slightly, it was the little things.  
“A hacker . . . He sent a hacker to . . . Do what?” Clark didn’t rely on gadgets, he had a communicator for the benefits of others, he guessed she could hack that, best that would do was . . . shock his ear _maybe_ , feed him incorrect information, nothing really _screamed_ the death of superman.  
“What how and why are all excellent questions.” Bruce scowled, he was good at that. There were less figurative gaps in his information gained, a full decade. He knew of her birth up to age twelve, and from twenty two to her current age of thirty but there was that missing decade.  
“We could ask her.” Diana offered. When looks of late to the party shot her way by the other members she rolled her eyes. “I’m sure your midwestern charm had her gushing and your . . . Snarling did. . . Something while I was away but I have something more useful than charm in mind.” Right her lariat, even if the woman didn’t want to talk to them, she would.

“Why is she hooked up to an I.V?” Clark frowned as they entered the observation room, he had a guess and it didn’t make him feel great.  
“Because she won’t eat or drink and we can’t have her dying before we figure out what they're up to.” Bruce shrugged. Clark knew it was semantics, knew Bruce wouldn’t let some woman die in the middle of the hall of justice, Bruce did have morals under that cowl yet it didn't hurt to be sure. “We can’t have her die . . . _period_ Batman.” It had been a hard rule, while this woman was residing in the hall real names were off limits, it was an awkward but understandable precaution. "Wonder woman?" Clark stopped her before she entered the room.  
"Yes?"  
"Will you ask her what her name is?"  
"I thought Batman was able to dig up her name."  
"Yes we know her name. It's important she remembers it, the more we distance her from Misery the better for all of us."  
"Focus on what abilities she has, stealing superman's Amazon password isn't going to kill him." Bruce saw Clark cringe but wasn't sure why, he was trying to solve this, protect them, building this girl's self esteem was not their concern. "If she's just disturbed we'll get her help alright?" Would that cork Clark's bleeding heart?  
"Not Arkham?" Clark shuffled farther away from him. He wasn't angry this wasn't Clark fighting, this was him hurt, defensive.

-Present-  
"Hurts." Clark muttered a bit vapildly, somewhat gone, maybe trying to escape the pain.  
"Then why'd you offer it slut?" He pushed himself another inch deeper, using the back of Clark's head to give him extra leverage. "Wet it with those pretty lips of yours for me? Were you just teasing me?" He let his palm slam against the indent of his fingernails, cement them into Clark's skin. "Well?" He wanted the flesh to redden any mark wouldn't last long but he'd admire them while they did. It was a sensation that was unique, battling his way into Clark's hole fighting for room alongside a cheap imitation of the real thing. "Well cottonwood? Eyes too big? Greedy for what you can't take? Is that it?" He went even deeper and then watched Clark's head drop neckless, heavy like a gutter ball. "Hey." Bruce ran a hand up Clark's spine, the man didn't shiver, didn't moan, didn't move. "Clark?" No answer, just measured breaths. "Clark, just stay relaxed alright? Don't fight I'll take off-" His fingers went to the collar.

-Earlier in the day-  
Diana walked in shoulders wide and fists bunched at her hips prepared for a fight that didn't come, Misery didn't even stir, her head barely lulled up, cocked ever so slightly to the side. "Did you decide yet?"  
"Decide?"  
"Well I doubt you will kill me, I wouldn't blame you, I came here to fix it, to stop it whatever it takes." Her eyes left Diana and looked to the double sided mirror. "Don't think of it as killing me think of it as saving earth, the world needs Superman, what's my life in trade _really_?"  
"Don't be a drama queen. You know we can't kill you, you're stalling." Diana snapped.  
_'Won't.'_ Clark felt out numbered. Why was everyone talking as if Misery lived by formality alone, that they didn't think her life had independent value?  
"Tell me have you ever killed anyone?" Diana was not going in slow.  
"Yes." There was no flinch no hesitation. "Though I don't . . . No." Misery's chin rose adement. "I remember why and it doesn't make a difference, no excuse."  
_'Is she just saying that to sway us into taking drastic measures?'_ Diana atleast was on the same page as Clark on that concern, either that or felt Misery was still being a drama queen and wanted to cut through it.  
"Do you know what this is?" Diana held up her lasso.  
"Your wonder rope?"  
"Wonder-" Maybe Diana heard it the healthy wave of laughter that came from Clark and Wally. Her shoulders lost some of their hardened edge.  
"She's playing dumb." Bruce didn't understand, or maybe he _did_ , maybe this _was_ his sort of threat, maybe this _was_ his wheel house, his rouge's gallery, maybe she wasn't _shackled_ to the Joker but a kindred spirit. _'Why are they focused on Clark.'_ Was he jealous? Of what? The death threat? Was it normal to be jealous of a death threat?  
"Maybe she isn't super keen on heroes." Clark liked that theroy, wanted to be right.  
"She's keen on _you_ don't forget that."

-Present-  
"Can." Clark sounded like he had to pluck that word from his ribcage. "Don't stop. Can take it." Had Clark dropped into some headspace or was this standing his ground in the wrong way?  
"Clark lets-"  
"Don't take it from me yet." He felt Clark's hand over his own, felt Clark trying to shift his hips backwards to take more of him. "Want-"  
"Don't take?" Bruce thrust himself forward and Clark cried.  
"Yes."  
"Just give, fucking stuff you full?"  
"Can take it. Can take it." He could hear it the triumphant stupid smile in Clark's wrecked words.

-Earlier In the day-  
"How many people have you killed?"  
"Directly? Four. I'm plans not power. How many deaths can be blamed squarely on my actions? Thirty? Found people who didn't want to be found, figured weaknesses of those that had none. Indirectly you could say hundreds, maybe thousands, tried not to linger on the aftermath of a job, didn't look outside the padded walls."  
"That doesn't bother you?" Diana sneered at what she thought was gloating but Clark saw differently.  
_'She feels guilt.'_ Clark saw it, in the open turned cheek look in Misery's face _. 'The person in there feels guilty. That . . . Does matter.'_ She didn't blame it on circumstances beyond her control or those who gave her those jobs, it was _her_ ability so it was _her_ fault.

"You stated you are inhanced. How?" Guilt didn't bring people back, answers could save lives. Clark understood that solving what made Misery tick was urgent but he felt her motives, her person had to be part of that, she was more than just her power. They were all more than just their skill sets weren't they? Wasn't he? Or was he just solar energy with a smile? Is that what the league saw when they looked at him?  
"My brain's been altered . . . Cognitive thinking isn't just restricted to my prefrontal cortex. The lobes intended for automatic sensory intake, if necessary can be . . . Hijacked, put their resources into executive thinking. I could go further, I've never pushed past the cerebellum, taken my brain stem off auto pilot but if it solved a puzzle I could, would."  
"This is making my prefrontal cortex hurt." Wally's brain was wrinkling in real time.  
"In short my head finds problem solving more crucial than preservation. I will forgo function for focus."  
"To what end?"  
"The solution to any puzzle, every time. I could demonstrate if you'd like. Bring in 12 to 25 pieces of a 1000 piece puzzle and a drawing pad, a pencil if you're feeling gen-"  
"No." There was Bruce's disembodied voice booming his favorite word through the speakers.  
"Smart. Give a mouse a cookie." Misery seemed to smiled relieved that Bruce was over cautious.

-Present-  
"Don't take?" Bruce shouted it that time, thrusting himself fully inside Clark, getting a howl in response as the man tried desperately to adjust, clawing at the sheets.  
"Shut the fuck up!" Well the upstairs neighbors were awake and both men grinned at that.  
"C . . . Can . . ."  
"Just give huh?" Bruce grabbed Clark's hips and bucked as if there was anywhere deeper to go. "You want everything, anything don't you? Does it even matter if it's my cock? Could shove anything in you and you'd take it wouldn't you."  
"Can. . ." Clark was busy breathing and panting and trying not to split in two, asking for words was a lot but Bruce set the bar high, he knew Clark coukd jump there. "Are you going to? Going to take it out?" Clark's voice cracked under the strain but he formed a full sentence.  
"No." Bruce combed his hand through the hair he'd been tearing from Clark's skull. "Because you can take it can't you?"  
"Yes." Clark continued to grunt with every thrust but when Bruce grabbed his wrists, pulling them to his sides, taking away his ability to cushion the blow Clark sighed, his head lulling loose again.

-Earlier in the day-  
Bruce removed his fingers from the com. "We would have to figure out the correct cocktail here before transporting her anywhere but enough suppressants should mitigate-"  
"You could turn her into a vegetable B!" Clark didn't like how simple of an solution that seemed to be.  
"That's not the goal but if. . . Not all endings are happy ones. What do you suggest, we ask her ever so nicely to stop? She's a human computer, she tried other solutions before coming to-"  
"She said there was a code to stop, to make her abandon a task. Give me a reason other than the one I'm thinking of that you aren't seeking that out instead of chemicaly frying her brain." Clark knew why, because Bruce saw Misery's power as dangerous, not just in the moment but in the future, even if they turned off this time bomb she could be reset. Bruce wanted to neutralize the threat she posed. "She's a _person_ B not a computer, shutting her off isn't the answer."  
"We don't know what _type_ of person she is." Bruce didn't understand, why was Clark championing for this woman he didn't know. Had she already put her plan into action? Was she trying to pull them apart?  
"We should figure that out." Clark went to put his hand on the com and Bruce grabbed his wrist.  
"Don't talk to her, you have to trust me, this is part of their plan, she'll be whoever she thinks will-."  
"I can exercise caution, if you exercise compassion." Clark would listen to reason but he would not sit idly by if he thought they were being less than just in their attempts. Guilty until proven innocent was a lot in life Clark had experienced more than once he didn't wish it on another.  
"What's your name?" Bruce sighed heavy glancing over at Clark as to ask if that was enough saint level compassion. Something interesting _did_ happen.

-Present-  
"Better Cottonwood?" It was beautiful and frightful, all those muscles, made for heavy hitting motion, just melting for him, bending, close to breaking. "Huh?" It was a brutal snap of his hips.  
"Bruce!" It was a plead for mercy but Clark didn't want mercy, which was good, Bruce didn't have any to spare.  
"So you still remember my name. Don't be shy! Be grateful Clark, thank me for allowing you to be the slut you are, cry for me!" Bruce burried himself in to the hilt. "Do it before I'm done with you." Bruce could have cum ages ago but he was a patient predator.  
"Is b . . . Better . . ." Clark was afraid it would end, _Clark_ was _afraid_ and his unwarranted fear was delicious, Bruce could taste it in his skin as he pulled Clark to kneel back into him, as he bit into Clark's shoulder. "Thank you." Close but thanks wasn't a sign of a broken Clark, neither was fear, there was a word Bruce was after.

\- Earlier in the day-  
She'd been nothing but forthcoming up to this point, here, on her name of all things she squirmed. "Missy Etil." She spat the name out. "But everyone calls me Misery."  
_'She could be Missy again, she looks like a Missy.'_ Clark liked that name, he vaguely recalled going to school with a girl named Missy, reminded him of home, of ordinary, of decent compassionate people who cared about the cut of your cloth.  
"Happy?" Bruce didn't like the jealousy that shot through him in seeing Clark's grin. They were battling a human computer, petty emotions would get them nowhere. Though when Clark smiled at him, the I knew you had it in you, never doubted you had emotions sort of look, Bruce . . . Was conflicted.

\- Present-  
"No matter how hard you try, must still feel empty without it don't you?" Maybe Clark just meant a flesh and blood cock was better than a toy but a small part of Bruce thought maybe Clark had more decearning tastes. "Without me." Maybe if Bruce gave him all he had nothing and no one would compare, it would be him that Clark craved above all else.

-Earlier in the day-  
"Missy." It was a dumb name. "Talk a big game but you couldn't solve a simple word puzzle?" That didn't make sense. "The code word you were talking about you . . . Have any idea what it could have been?" She wasn't fighting the answer, she was fighting to find one.  
"Been going through probable word combinations, trying to narrow it down clawed up a wiped memory. Has something to do with the Ace of clubs I'm sure of it."  
"The bar?" Clark grinned again, now he had a reason to visit his biggest fan Bibbo, the owner of the Ace of clubs.  
"Maybe not." Bruce had a different theroy, he knew what reports he'd be leafing through for bedtime ready material. _'Do have new members each time. It's something.'_  
"Last question, I can see you're getting tired." Compassion was infectious, Diana sounded less battle ready. Now _Bruce_ felt outnumbered had this woman's forced honesty come off as genuine openness to the others?  
"Diana get out of there." Her trap, she was doing something, Bruce wasn't sure what but Misery, Missy, whoever she was, had been digging her hooks in, he wasn't sure how but he wouldn't allow it. "Now!" Both women jumped a bit at the bark but the lasso did begin to loosen.

-Present-  
"Bruce!" Clark was raw, inside and out, from his shout scorched throat to his spread channel.  
"That's me, the fuck more could you want? Not so selfless are you now slut? Don't you dare cum. You're here for _me_ , to take _me_."

\- Earlier in the day-  
"Would you drink that water please?" Clark calm as anything, grinning stupid, smug, leaning in towards the com Bruce's slammed fist finally released from.  
"The fuck are you doing?" Bruce kept one eye on Diana as she backed out of the room but any free corner of his glance held on Clark. He'd held up _his_ end of the bargain had been compassionate as fuck even called her by her dumb name. Why was Clark being so headstrong?  
"Backing you up." The idiot winked at him like they were on the same page, in the same library of thought. "You're a better bad cop anyway. I don't mind playing good cop B." His hand went back to the com. "We want to help you Missy I promise." Bruce watched one his least favorite smiles spread on Clark's face.  
_'He knows something I don't, but what?'_

-Present-  
"Bruce!" He had never lost it but now Bruce was assaulting it, grinding ruthlessly into Clark's prostate.  
"You're not done yet Cottonwood." This pace was unsustainable, they'd both bottom out soon.  
"Bruce I can't I'll. . . I'll . . ."  
"You'll cum when I say or not at all. You can take it can't you?"  
"C . . .C . . .Fuck." The boyscout did curse, that still wasn't the break Bruce was after. "Can."

-Earlier in the day-  
She stared at the cup for a moment as if it was a puzzle to be solved. "Fine." The first sip was bitter, the next large but still protest in her features, her eyes closed and they just got greedy and rushed beyond that. Clark liked watching the battle leave her face, it settled something he couldn't quite define in his chest.  
"See not the worst." There was a small satisfied sigh from her lungs and he smiled larger still, such a pride radiating off him like had accomplished something great. Everyone saw it, no one understood it. "Thank you Missy." It was that it hadn't be a feat of strength, speed, some alien power. It was . . . Compassion, comfort, those weren't just words to him, a nice notion. It was a luxury he rarely got, he wasn't allowed to be compassionate as he'd like. He was a beacon of hope, or righteousness, truth, not compassion, he'd like someone to know, someone to look at him like superman was compassionate, comforting. He was a good man, he wanted someone to know he could be good in softer ways. Superheroes didn't understand didn't function in soft, would find insult in it, his only chance was someone ordinary.  
"Will you leave me alone if I promise to not. . . Die? That work?"  
" _See?_ She agrees . . ." Bruce scowled, how was the only person on his side, the threat in their hall?  
"Missy do-"  
"Don't call me that."  
"I like it better than Misery." Clark stated so matter afactly.  
"I . . . No one calls me Missy anymore." She seemed caught of gaurd by Clark's . . . Ease.  
" _I_ call you that." He seemed unwilling to budge, but no one outside him could fathom why. Why was this so important to him? What was his plan? Compassion was for friends, family, lovers, not the person who swore to be the death of you.  
"What else do you want?" Missy sighed exhausted and Clark's smile exploded, a victorious grin. Had he learned anything, gained some upper hand beyond outside comprehension?

-Present-  
"Bruce!"  
"You mouthy whore. Should have brought something to fill every hole of yours. What? Say something other than my God Damn name!"  
"Bruce!" One last defiant cry.  
"Maybe I should just cum down your throat, that'll shut you up!"  
"No! Please."  
"What was that?" It was here, Clark was breaking for him.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Missy is there someone you'd like to . . . Call? Someone that is missing you maybe?"  
"We cannot-" Bruce shoved at Clark's fingers over the com, they couldn't let her reach out to any partners.  
"No I don't want to call anyone. I want to be left alone. Please."

-Present-  
"Please." It was what would get Clark what he wanted and that's all he could think on.  
"Again."  
"Please! Bruce please!" This was Clark breaking, when he pleaded, when he wasn't acting, allowing, it was when he was asking. Clark always gave everything he had, until he broke, then and only then did he make requests for himself.  
"Nearly there, begging so well Cottonwood." Bruce sounded less demanding, sounded praising. "Please what? What do you want?"

-Earlier In the day-  
"No one would miss you?" Clark was pressing this point. "Think on that for a second? I find that hard to believe."  
"No one _misses_ Misery." She chuckled sad again. Clark was curious if anyone taught her how to chuckle rightly.  
"Does anyone miss . . . _Missy?_ A family maybe? Even if it's been a-"  
"No one _remembers_ Missy, not even me. Really she doesn't exist." She looked up at the ceiling, he knew that look, not knowing which you was you, or more accurately not knowing which you had worth. "Leave me alone?"  
"Alright, alright, enough for now Missy. Would you like a-"  
"There's a decade missing from your records what happened during that period of time?" This coddling was getting them nowhere, Bruce needed answers.  
"I was whittled this way for a purpose, lucky me I could do most my jobs from inside padded walls. I preferred those jobs, code breaking, heavy hacking, plotting heists and prison br-"  
"Who did you work for?"  
"My handler. Evan Williams."  
"All that cognitive thinking of yours and you never asked who he worked for?" Bruce did glance at the rest of the leauge they did seem to understand her story had holes, she couldn't be trusted, he'd won them back.  
"You think that wasn't the first thing I tried? E.W freelanced my services but someone had to bankroll my . . .conditioning, received a cut, lord knows I didn't get paid. I told you I, as a precautionary measure had a tetlepath wipe memories related to my triggers so I wouldn't be leashed again." She glanced from side to side, was a cage any better than a leash? "I was pretty liberal with what I let him scrub. We tried recovering them but-"  
"Didn't take?" Bruce didn't believe her. "We who?" What back ally hack had she _valiantly_ tried.  
"My brain is working against me! You're not understanding the tug of war I'm going through!"  
"We understand we just don't have time for your baggage!" Bruce heard something close to a growl from Clark that he needed to just ignore.  
"It doesn't want to stop, it wants to succeed. Working to remember will not get me any closer to my goal. I have to convince my own head that every _thought_ , every _action_ has value to my main goal of being the death of superman."  
"How convenient." Bruce growled louder, he hadn't _ignored_ Clark, he was _challenging_ him.  
"Hey I'm willing to try anything to stop this, if you want to try, magic, medicine, medieval torture, **something**! If you think you can dig that word out with a melon baller go for it." If this was a bluff, which Bruce had to stay convinced it was, it was a decent one.

"Missy? You don't have a bed in there. Have you been sleeping?" She was a prisoner, was a threat, Bruce had made that clear thrice over. But she was a person, Clark would nurture that, he felt a compulsion to, felt it important to _his_ person. Clark wanted this room to be more normal, ordinary, maybe even warm. She was feeling cold, he knew she was, he knew this degree of cold, knew what it was like to be scared of what you were.  
"No."  
"No you don't want a bed or-"  
"No." She was ice pure ice, still staring at the ceiling.  
"We did not mean to upset-"  
"Mean to. Don't try to make friends with me superman. I don't want to be your friend I feel bad enough that I'll be the death of you." Bruce wasn't alone Misery also thought it was a bad idea for Clark to get close, to be kind.  
_'Reverse psychology, playing hard to get. It's a trap.'_ It had to be a trap. _'Right?'_ Bruce stormed out, she was good, had him second guessing himself, the league, _Clark_ , she was a bigger threat than he'd given her credit for. _'She won't steal him from me.'_

-Present-  
"Please let me cum I need-" His arms were released Bruce grabbed him by the nape of his neck slamming him down into the mattress.  
"Like this? Breed you?" His free hand went down to Clark's throbbing cock. "So long as I take care of this?" Bruce started stroking Clark in time with his brutal thrusts. "You'll look so good just spilling me won't you?"  
"Please." Clark sobbed.  
"Don't care do you Cottonwood? The mess I've made you?"  
"Bruce please."  
"It's just how I want you, not clean, not proud, not strong, you're not a hero, just a hole to be filled. All I need you to be." The tips of his fingers teased through Clark's Sweaty hair. "Nearly there."  
"P-" Without warning the toy that had been sharing the space with Bruce's cock was removed. The groan at the sensation was inhuman, Bruce could nearly see Clark's eyes roll back in his skull, smirked at the shiver running up that lovely bent spine.  
"Please!" Clark had lost the last bit of his restraint, he was desperate, he was desperate for one thing.  
"Just me. Just cum on my cock go on Cottonwood, I'll let you cum with me." Permission granted Clark completely crumbled, dissolved in a pool of their spend.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Who are you reaching out to?" Clark had a hand on Bruce's shoulder, glancing over all the monitors that were flickering from planet to planet.  
"J'onn. He can dig her memories back up. He'll understand my concerns."  
"Do you think I don't _understand_? Do you think I'm an idiot B?"  
"Yes." He answered maybe a bit snide. "I think you want her to be like you, she's nothing _like_ you." Clark was perfect, was what everyone aspired to be and he did so with a humble smile. This woman was good at puzzles and had no control of her own head, she wasn't trustworthy, was a criminal, a threat, with a dumb name.  
"There's no one _like_ me B." Clark was kneading at Bruce's tense muscle. "I understand she might be attempting to exploit that feeling."  
"Then why-"  
"Because there's a chance that not _all_ of it is a ruse, there's a chance she . . . Just needs someone to care about . . . The person in there."  
"That someone doesn't have to be you. You're superman, you're needed for bigger better things. She's not worth our time, there are threats to the _world_ Kansas, that need your attention."  
"I know that."  
"And you still want to be that someone. Why?" Why did Clark want anything, Bruce would give anything to him all he needed to do was ask, Clark wasn't too proud to ask, to break for Bruce. So it meant what he wanted from that woman Clark felt Bruce was incapable of providing. Bruce had a sinking feeling it wasn't a matter of biology and that made it worse.  
"Weather she feels she's outsmarted me or she feels that anything that happens she deserves. She is not afraid of me, of what I'll do to her, she doesn't view me as a threat."  
"I don't-"  
"It reminds me of before . . ." Clark cut him off didn't want to force Bruce to muscle out a white lie. "Before _everyone_ saw me that way, have to see me that way."  
"You're a beacon of hope, people love you, respect you, you don't get that from being feared."  
"So long as I don't step a toe out of line, act of my own accord. I have my motives scrutinized the second I . . . " Clark shook his head and started over. " _Superman_ is trusted, what I stand for, my image. The lonely alien who despite living his whole life with humans is not trusted to have opinions on them, is an idiot."  
"You're twisting my words."  
"I asked if you thought I was an idiot . . . You said yes." Clark was hurt and yet he chuckled warm, Bruce didn't understand it couldn't take it in the moment, he left.

-Present-  
"You're not an idiot." Bruce was quick to spout when Clark came out of the bathroom, it had taken him all day to force that up his throat.  
"I thought I wasn't." Clark had a light carefree smile on his face. "Then I let you do all that." He handed over the collar back to Bruce. "Laundry day is going to be awkward." Clark laughed, and it took Bruce by surprise all over again. He had hurt Clark's feelings and he was laughing like nothing was wrong, had sex solved their tension?  
_'No.'_ Clark was just a better person than him, forgave him, didn't hold a grudge against him. "I still think you should stay away from her."  
"Oh you're stuck in your ways? Don't think you're wrong." Clark sat next to him on the edge of his bed. "Why am I not surprised?" He leaned his head against Bruce's shoulder.  
"Because you're not an idiot." Bruce snorted, combing his hand through Clark's fucked frizzy hair. _'Not because I don't trust you, not because you're wrong.'_  
"I'm going to do what I think is right." Clark wrapped an arm around Bruce's waist.  
"I'm not an idiot either." He let his own forehead tilt over and into Clark's head, breathing in his closeness. _'If she can give you something I can't, what if she can give you everything I can? If she took this from me I would live.'_ The possessive hum that ran through his chest seemed to disagree. _'If you get everything you want, you deserve, then she kills you, if I taught you it was safe to break and that's the death of you, if she takes **you** from me. I wouldn't survive that.'_  
"We're going to butt heads on this till we fix it." Clark sighed.  
"Good thing we've got thick skulls." Bruce didn't disagree.  
"Are you calling me an idiot again?" There wasn't hurt in that question.  
"Yes." There was no venom in the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be one more chapter that's got this smut to plot whiplash then I'll stop I nearly promise.


	3. My favorite flavor

Bruce had been relentless had it been an hour? It must've been an hour, maybe two, Bruce was thorough, perhaps there was an inch of Clark's throat he hadn't hit. "Don't swallow." Which was an odd request, Clark was excellent at swallowing, Bruce had told him as such. Odder still Bruce was pulling his thrusts short, he hadn't done that in . . . Well in close to an hour.  
_'Wants to see it.'_ Clark rationalized, he still had a mind to think. His throat saw the gesture as kind, greedily flexing and releasing to make up for lost time. Clark knew it wasn't, knew Bruce wouldn't be kind, and that was a loose interpretation of the word, until he broke and a long throat fucking no matter how brutal on his momentarily human tonsils was not going to break him. It was warm and heavy and fought to find room amongst the drool when Bruce came.  
"Open your mouth." Clark had an oddly proud somewhat pickled look about him, he'd guessed right, didn't matter it wasn't exactly rocket science, he'd guessed right. Then he felt Bruce's thick clubbed and calloused fingers dig and scoop against his over worked tounge, Bruce was stealing his own spend from Clark. Then his palm flattened out, he was smearing it cross Clark's face, his lips, his cheeks and then assessed the image in front of him and seemed . . . disappointed. Clark felt ashamed, felt dirty, confused. Did he miss something? He didn't mind shame, he minded being wrong.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Missy?" It was just like the day before, the two weeks before that.  
"Go away! Please! Leave me alone!" That was less . . adement than before, Clark could hear it, the ghost of a chuckle, either driven mad or amused by Clark's persistence.

-Present-  
"Are you just going to leave your mouth gaping like a whore?" That's exactly what he was going to do, he wasn't as naive to a trap as Bruce or Missy thought. "Course you are." Bruce's spend and spit covered hand combed through his hair, just like please Bruce didn't often just say good job, didn't thank people like a normal person but Clark could feel the praise in his fingers, in the thumb that dragged his lower lip long. Confusion and concern left Clark, he'd guessed right again. "Let's see how long you plan to keep that stupid face."

-Earlier In the day-  
"No I.V today? J'onn says your vitals are leveling out. Eating and drinking." Clark smiled.  
"You linger longer on days I don't eat, don't drink." He very much did. He'd tell her all about his day to kill time, feet proped up and over the com button. Sometimes she'd hold out and nothing he would do or say would sway her. Sometimes she would cave because he'd bored her tears with the literal play by play, from his morning coffee to his commute, his conversations with coworkers, any heroics that found it's way into his work day. One especially nice day he'd retold one of the jokes that hadn't hit well at the daily planet, and she tried to hide a smile over a gulp of water. He'd given a detailed description of a pasta dinner he'd been far too proud of making and she'd heeded her stomachs commiserating grumble.

-Present-

He liked this part most, well maybe not _most_ , cumming was pretty swell and just that quiet thoughtless moment when he wasn't weighing out options was probably the _best_ but being dragged, pulled on his knees by his hair, he quite liked that feeling. It felt humbling and human all over and any second of that was so nice. What came next had taken some getting used to. It's not that he was hand cuffed at all too odd an angel to the foot of the bed, he was comfortable, his wrists hung fine, it was that he couldn't get away, the whole purpose of restraints. What if he was needed and he couldn't get away, he would already be behind the gun, he couldn't hear distress before help was requested, he didn't have time to fiddle with handcuffs.  
"I checked, no one needs Superman." Bruce ran a palm long his chest, feeling his pulse go from caged to compliant. That helped, that always helped, Clark knew, believed, trusted if the world needed him no one would get him out of those cuffs faster than Bruce Wayne. Some days he would ask Bruce to check again, when his mind wasn't settled quite right and Bruce always complied without hesitation or grief. Today wasn't one of those days. He was too focused on the locking feeling in his jaw from 'keeping that stupid face.'

-Earlier In the day-  
"If I want you to leave me alone, you know to keep you safe?" Was she teasing him? He knew if he was patient he would break through her defenses, he'd had years of practice. Bruce wasn't a nut to crack he had been a boulder to squeeze. That didn't mean Clark was going to claim himself victorious, Missy was a challenge in a different way, she was slippery, stuck in one room for two weeks she some how found ways to dodge him. "It's the choice that makes sense."

-Present-  
It was uncomfortable, distracting, drying out his tongue, but constant, something that held his attention. "Hard? From what?" It was from being throat fucked, from being dragged and shackled but Clark said none of that, just looked up at Bruce waiting. "No reason? Just have someone paying attention to you and you're at full attention for them? Needing _what_?" At first Clark hadn't understood the point of this sort of thing, why ask questions yet also demand silence, demand that his mouth remain open and messy and dripping. "Pointless asking anyway, it would be some selfless nobel answer wouldn't it? Whatever _I_ want? Whatever _I_ need?" Bruce wasn't wrong. Clark's brain settled further, he didn't have to guess right anymore, he didn't have to chose. Bruce didn't want him to chose, just take whatever it was _he_ wanted, _he_ needed until Clark broke. "Keep your mouth open Clark do you hear me?" To which he nodded. "Easy to agree to when you're just sitting there gaping." Bruce's palm was hard like cinder block knocked square into Clark's chest.

-Earlier in the day-  
"He said the more stable I am the longer he can search in my head, he's willing to try again." For a micro second Clark frowned, memory manipulation was never a breeze but Missy had gone catatonic for two days after the first attempt, he had asked J'onn what he'd seen an the only answer he got was  
'Things better left burried.'  
"Whatever it takes, happy to hear it regardless." Clark wouldn't linger on concerns, this was a good day, he planned to reinforce that. The pleased shrugged could be felt on the other end of the glass.

-Present-  
His mouth didn't close, he groaned the air out of his lungs before sucking it back in. "Felt that didn't you?" Clark's eyes closed, he did, he felt it, through all of his nerves, it felt . . . Well it stung but it was something akin to a sour candy. Made him flinch and clench but then sent some signal to his brain that it was good, exactly what he wanted, that he probably wanted another. He felt a few rough pumps at his cock and the slick frictionless slide seemed to confirmed that thought. He couldn't ask though, just refocus on that dulling ache in his jaw. "Is my hand not enough?" Was Bruce asking him? It didn't matter Bruce wasn't going to get an answer, just more drool and pre cum on his expensive rug. "Clark?"

-Earlier In the day-  
"Why?" She hadn't done this in weeks, made direct eye contact or tried, she couldn't see him but she looked in his direction, that was close enough, made him smile, he appreciated the effort, shuffled a few feet so her gaze was correct.  
"Because I don't think you should be suffering Missy."  
"But I _should_! I'm going to be the death of-"  
"Would you rather I torture you Missy?"

-Present-  
That soft hand, that not quite please, not quite thank you, he liked that too. "If you fall asleep on me I'll take it personally." Oh he was checking in, that was important, he'd worried Bruce once before. Clark might not have his super speed but Bruce stated he went from lucid to punch drunk far quicker than most. Bruce didn't understand, Clark had to soak up every second of this that he could, he couldn't get this anywhere else _with_ anyone else. Clark begrudgingly opened his eyes, he nodded but that didn't seem to be quite enough. How else was he supposed to tell him to keep going? He knew the answer to that question, Bruce Wayne wasn't a man who lived or looked to admire subtly. Clark cantered his hips up thrusting at air, once twice, three or four times till he saw a glint of amusement in Bruce's eyes. "A slut with no shame Cottonwood." He got another swift jerk and Clark groaned, mostly because it would be swell to cum but a little bit because that was almost sweet, when Bruce called him Cottonwood. What came next was less sweet.  
_'That's new!'_ This one was different, it was a flogger he was prepared for that, expecting it, this one was different though. _'Studs?'_ That was part of it, the leather was different too but as Clark grunted through the impact he decided he was thinking far to much on the craftsmanship of it. He should be focused on . . . What was he focusing on again?

-Earlier in the day-  
"Stop calling me that." She winced like the name hurt her.  
"Can't call you what you'd like _and_ torture you. Can't have your arsenic cake and eat it to. What do you want me to do? Cave to your demands or torture?"  
"You're blurring the lines."  
"You blurred them first."  
"Fair." She nodded, being dropped on their door step, threatening death but stating she didn't want to, she _was_ a blur.

-Present-  
His eyes weren't finding purchase on anything particular. He tried to focus on the sensations, each set of twenty was different though, felt different. His arms had enough cushion and mass that it was an impact, a blow and then just a nip at the end, it was sour candy, just a pleasant pain. His thighs hurt more and those muscles weren't as loose, maybe because he was knelt or maybe due to the tension that an inch or so wrong would hurt in a whole different way. The tension was nice though, surged up and into his chest. Maybe that's why it burned, the strikes against his chest, they hurt, it wasn't sour candy it was one of those dumb peppers people ate as a challenge and suffered through until you puked.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Demands or torture?" He watched her think and think on it for minutes, her eyes lost all focus, she was deep in her head weighing out her options.  
"Demands?" She sighed the question.  
"Any come to mind?" He couldn't have sounded more eager. _'Who are you? I know what Misery wants, what does Missy want?'_

-Present-  
He was going to shout, the guttural noises he was making were not telegraphing what he was going through but then he remembered what he was focusing on, his mouth was hanging open for a reason, he had to keep it open. The dull ache was a hard feeling to pinpoint, what with his chest on fire. Were there tears in his eyes? Just like those dumb pepper challenges. He focused, his eyes clamped shut and he focused on keeping his mouth open, all the way from one to twenty. "Stubborn slut Cottonwood." And that hand in his hair was that cold glass of milk after one of those dumb peppers, just mending and coating and nice, a reprieve. Bruce got nicer still which was odd, he hadn't broken yet had he? And not even noticed?

-Earlier In the day-  
"Huh?"  
"Demands? I've heard them all over the years, money, weapons, the still beating heart of your enemies? Please pick something different." He watched her think and think for another moment. What was an ordinary demand?  
"Something differnt. Anyone ever demand popsicles?" She blurted with a confidence he hadn't heard yet.  
"No." Clark grinned. "Four."

-Present-  
Bruce was kissing and licking and nipping on the forest fire that was Clark's chest. Maybe Clark moaned, he really wasn't sure what sounds he was making anymore. When Bruce teased at his nipple with tounge teeth and lips Clark hoped whatever sound it was had been encouraging, it was good, this was good. He did have two nipples though, Kryptonians weren't that biologically off. The other did not have tounges teeth and lips, it had fingers that had and would break men's faces, twisting and tugging and Clark found the dueling sensations very distracting. He had focused through pure pain but pain and pleasure, it would be nice to close his mouth to wet his lips, to moan proper, he wanted to, yet he staid focused. "Did you want to cum?" That was most assuredly the point here, he did _want_ to cum, Bruce knew that, Clark didn't sweat not being able to answer. "Go on then." It was a miserably loose fist that Bruce made around him, why even do it?

-Earlier In the day-  
"F-" She didn't get the full word out before she heard the hiss of the door. "-our?" He was there in front of her a box in each hand.  
"Catch." He tossed her one.  
"Get out! Are you out of your mind?! Stay away! You-" She was scrambling from him in fear, a fear he hardly ever saw, not of him, for him.  
"In . . . Three minutes." Clark sat in front of her, cracked open the box still in hand. "Share a Popsicle with me before he shouts us off the face of the earth?" So . . . Ordinary, nice, unwrapping the frozen treat, popping it in his mouth it tasted like July on the farm. "Don't worry when it happens I'll catch you." This moment tasted simple and quiet and-

\- Present-  
There was no friction to be garnered there, Clark tried though, had hope that if he hit the right angel, if he craned his hips just right he could get the pressure he needed. Was Bruce laughing? It didn't much matter and honestly Clark couldn't blame him. He was wild and reckless, drool had long ago become slobber, he was animal rutting into a hole too big for his dick and getting nowhere for it. "You're so close Cottonwood, nearly there." It was cooed but in no way comforting, almost patronizing. "You really _must_ be selfless boy scout, I could have sworn you wanted to cum but if all you wanted was to be was a training dummy with warm holes for me I won't waste more of your time."

-Earlier In the day-  
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Bruce really was fast when he was angry.  
"Two minutes, go on, better than bread and water promise." He grinned as he got that look again, when stress and struggle left her face and she just . . . Enjoyed a popsicle with him for a second.  
"Get your ass out of there, now!" Bruce was in the hallway.  
"Right?" Clark bit the popsicle in half, fun as this was he never got to have fun long.

-Present-  
The hand that wasn't enough of a fist was gone, soon after were the handcuffs, Clark's arms slumped, maybe Bruce was massaging his shoulders or maybe he was weighing him like a pound of peaches, it didn't matter. Two of Bruce's fingers crooked into that mouth that would have to remember how to close when given the chance. Clark was more or less hoisted by the roof of his mouth, once vertical the fingers dragged, pulled his cheek garish and wide, the fingers were removed and any drool that had gotten on Bruce was promptly smeared clean against Clark's face. He didn't move, he didn't have to. "Clark?" Why was Bruce always checking in? He was fine, he was superman. Except he wasn't, nothing super about him in the moment, just Clark, just Cottonwood, just an open mouth. He didn't feel like rutting at the air again to signal he was alright so he just stood there for a minute, staring, swaying, blinking, just _being_ for a moment or two.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Why are you-" Bruce was in the room, snatching the box from her.  
"Superman get out now." How one could be _so_ furious with a box of Popsicles in your hand really was sort of impressive, weirdly attractive.  
"She had four whole minutes to kill me and didn't, counts for something right?" Clark looked up at Bruce amused then over at Missy who stared at him blank, unphased by the melting colored ice rolling down her hand.  
"I didn't." She nodded then she smiled, not mad, not cocky just . . . An pleased almost ordinary smile.  
_'Hope.'_ With comfort not carnage, he had instilled hope, it was refreshing.

-Present-  
"Can hear the wind blow between those ears of yours can't you?" That wasn't cooed but it sounded more comforting, accompanied by that hand in his hair, he looked at Bruce and while he couldn't smile, he could feel it, his face trying to do so, trying mouth removed, to give some stupid grin Bruce would hate. "Gonna need you to muster a nod if you want more Clark if-" Bruce was not about wasted breath so once he got the nod he was after he had Clark's hips in his hands spinning him to face the foot of the bed, shoving him down by the nape of his neck till he was huffing hot air through a down feathered comforter. He could probably close his mouth, maybe just for a second, perhaps Bruce wouldn't notice. Though Bruce noticed everything, it just as well might not be worth it. Maybe Bruce noticed even the contemplation of disobedience, because those fingers were back in his mouth, pulling Clark by the cheek curving his spine in to a bit of a U. "Put it to some use won't you? Less you want me to finger you dry."

-Earlier In the day-  
"Means she's not an impulsive idiot." Bruce glared between Clark and Missy. Who was testing who here? This was still Missy wearing down Clark's defenses wasn't it?  
"And now we can all check a blitz attack off our list of ways Missy will be the death of me." Clark stood, that smile made Bruce's blood boil. That smile was . . . Purple, likely tasted like grapes and hope and Bruce wanted it, he couldn't have it and that made his blood even hotter, nearly steaming.

-Present-  
Clark was a bit confused by this request. Was Bruce giving him permission to close his mouth? He wasn't sure, yet he didn't need those clubbed fingers spearing him raw so Clark wagged and writhed his tounge over the digits. He heard it that time for sure, Bruce was laughing. "You do know how to suck I've seen-" He laughed again, because it was ridiculous, it was warranted a laugh how quick Clark's mouth clamped down, how he groaned absolutely elated to rest his jaw. Clark wanted this feeling to last and he figured the best way to do that was to be good at what was asked of him. He would suck Bruce's fingers clean off the bone if he could keep his mouth shut a moment longer. "Your cheeks look good hollow Cottonwood." And Clark hummed, he must've been doing good, better than good for Bruce to compliment him. He felt a warmth flood over him as Bruce's palm slid up his back. "But I do need those fingers back, remember?" Clark for one brief moment contemplated, would it be worthwhile, keeping these fingers in his mouth and letting Bruce finger fuck him dry.  
_'No.'_ He dragged his lips mournfully inch by inch.  
"You're thinking too much. Don't worry I'll fix that. Keep it open, just cause it's not in use doesn't mean I don't want it accessible." Clark let a huff through his nose as he convinced his jaw it would be worth it in the long run to go lax again. It did pay off, callosed and at points crooked from bad breaks, Bruce's fingers investigated just as diligently as the rest of him. Prying and pushing, sometimes dragging, as far as they would reach as heavy as he could press. Clark found a way to moan mouth open. "I'd ask if you're ready but you're always ready aren't you, always willing and able." Bruce pressed Clark's hips down into the mattress hard and the friction was glorious but that was half the danger. "You don't cum before me Cottonwood." All these don'ts, don't close your mouth, don't cum, he was a man who did things, don't was a much harder request. Two don'ts was two too many, especially as Bruce thrust deep into him, his whole bodys shucked forward.

-Earlier In the day-  
"Your plan Missy it grow any? Seeing me up close?" Cogs turned, thinking, thinking, struggle and strain was back.  
"Still don't know how I'll be the death of you." That was an evasive answer and they all heard it, yet Clark was still smiling.  
"Any more memories at all?"  
"I remember eating Popsicles." She shrugged.  
"Where? Brings me back to-"  
"What part of _out_ are you not understanding?" Bruce barked.  
"Waiting for a please . . . Or at the very least you to recognize I'm not a _dog_ I'm-" Clark still smiled but there was that tightness in his jaw, of feeling disrespected, of Bruce crossing some line still not well established.

\- Present-  
_This_ was his favorite part, when his wrists were held tight and his whole body was just ragdolled back and forth. He liked to be a movable object, it had a novelty others just would never understand or at the very least underappreciated. He focused on that a while, a long while, forever, had it been forever? It seemed like it, though in the back back back of his mind he knew it wasn't, Bruce was a busy man. "Clark?" Did he look dead or something? With all the pestering, the way Bruce wrenched back his head by every last root of his hair, he must've. Which was funny because he _felt_ alive, he felt really _really_ alive like this. Funny things are meant to be laughed at and he wondered if his glossy eyes showed that he would have. "Tell a boy he can fall and he plummets." There was that laugh again, it wasn't shaking the walls, it wasn't overly warm but Clark wasn't sure he knew a better sound. "Fuck." That was almost as good, it was husky and humored and most importantly close to cumming, which meant Clark could cum . . . Eventually. Then Bruce pulled out and Clark floundered, flaied. Was he not? Was no one? What the fuck was going on? He was manhandled, wrangled and flipped, his eyes catching Bruce's looking for answers. Then he felt it warm silky spurts cross his chest, Bruce's palm working it up, past his neck, over his chin, harshly cross his open lips, Clark's tongue dipped out taste Bruce, enjoyed him. Yet now he was empty and Bruce was likely done, had gotten what he wanted, had things to do, places to be and Clark was . . . Getting no blood to his brain because it was all firmly nestled in his cock. Bruce's face was resting in his naval, panting intentional or otherwise into his belly button, it would tickle if Clark could feel anything other than the need for release. He had to say something didn't he? Bruce was pressing himself up, would he leave him here unfulfilled? It was possible, it had happened before, more than once, Bruce was a busy man. Clark tried to grunt, then buck, then he _whined_ , he groaned and panted and ached.  
"What?" Bruce _did_ see him, _did_ hear him, he was giving Clark a chance, to ask, to beg, to _break_. "You're not a dog." Some synapse of a conversation from earlier popped in Clark's brain, he keened at the sentence though he wasn't sure why. "If a tree falls in the woods does anyone hear it?" That was far too philosophical a question for right this very moment. "Fall for me Cottonwood." Bruce's tounge was kind was wet and warm and right on the underside of his blood red cock. "Not to pain, held that stupid face of yours through that." His whole mouth, his whole fucking mouth bobbing up and down, Clark's mouth wanted to close, his jaw wanted to clench over the brewing moan. "To me." Bruce pulled off, placed a palm against Clark's windpipe, squeezing, commanding, challenging. "Break for me Clark." He could hold, Clark could, he wasn't dying, not at all, he was alive, he felt so _alive_.

-Earlier In the day-  
"You're putting the league at risk." Bruce snarled.  
"Leauge less important than a please?"  
"I . . . _Out_." He didn't say please, Clark knew Bruce would view that too big a bow but the softer way Bruce said out was . . . Close enough to keep both their egos intact.  
"Enjoy your popsicle Missy." Clark waved as he stood.

\- Present-  
"Please." He was alive and wanted to cum. "Please Bruce." You have to open and close your mouth to make words like that. Would Bruce punish him? _Again_? It wasn't Bruce's fault, it was his, he shouldn't _get_ to cum, he _should_ be punished, he failed at a simple request, keep your mother op-  
"Thank you." Bruce whispered before getting back to what he started.  
"Wha- no it I don't-" He hadn't earned this, deserved it, yet it was coming, _he_ was cumming. "No Bruce- Eng . . . Please Bruce please-" if he was getting what he didn't earn at least he could be grateful. "Ahhh, I, so . . . " What sort of thanks was that. "Feels so- oh." The shiver towards the end, super or not he liked that, made him chuckle every time. Bruce slunk off and surged up, kissed Clark's own cum into his mouth, swirled it into his tounge. Breathe leveled, bodies slumped.  
"No more grape." Bruce snarled. Who snarled about grapes? _Bruce_ snarled about grapes. Clark let him have his snarl, didn't think on it, soaked up these last seconds before it had to happen. The collar had to come off, he had to be different again, super.

-Earlier In the day-  
"I saw what you did." Bruce sneared.  
"I have faith neither of our pride will allow her to kill me with a popsicle stick."  
"Just because she won't _stab_ you doesn't mean-"  
" _Means_ B, she's got a popsicle stick, let's see what she does with it." This was his test, was she a mental case, a calculative villain, or something different, some little slice of ordinary if he nurtured her as such. _'No one would miss her, I could have her forget that, I wouldn't miss her either just . . . Have her.'_ Clark couldn't tell if that was a dark thought, it didn't seem it, seemed like a win win. _'Wonder what she likes other than popsicles'_

\- Present-  
"You're quite." Bruce stated once they got less . . . Sticky, laid not cuddling but in the same bed.  
"You like quiet." Clark smiled not mentioning he'd had his mouth open for hours, he was content with keeping it shut. "B?" He was inquisitive though.  
"Hmm?" Bruce allowed himself to continue playing with Clark's hair.  
"Do you have a favorite part?" Clark turned to study him for a tell, waiting for Bruce to say no, he enjoyed nothing, he simply brooded his way through it.  
"Yes."  
"Which . . . Is?"  
"If I tell you, you'll ruin it."  
"Sound so sure." Clark had his evergreen grin back.  
"You'll try to make it happen more often."  
"Which is . . . Bad?"  
"It's . . . What's your favorite part?" Clark remembered rating the moments as they came and went.  
"You'll ruin it." Clark gave a smirk. "Lot of . . . New stuff today, what brought that on? You're normally so consistent" Clark could set his watch by Bruce's habits, any changes were deliberate and tactile, any spontaneity was just a maneuver to keep others on their toes.  
"You noticed."  
"Of course I _noticed_ , it's my body you're-"  
"Sometimes it seems like you don't notice anything, like you turn off entirely."  
"I'm sorry I don't mean-" That didn't sound good _or_ alluring. It sounded like Bruce was doing all the heavy lifting and Clark was . . . Taking a nap.  
"Is that what you like? Turning off?" Bruce didn't sound hopeful that was Clark's shtick, he sounded like a detective, trying to get to the bottom of things.  
"Doesn't feel like turning off." Clark threaded his hands behind his head, trying to reclaim the sensation but he was too outwardly aware now, it wouldn't come.  
"What does it feel like?"  
"Turning . . . In?" His eyes, his ears, nose, his sense of taste they were all super, all getting stimulation at all times from everything around him, he could filter them, focus them so they weren't overloaded but still they were always tuned outward, vigilant. In those moments he got to just sense . . . Himself and Bruce if there was skin to skin, it was so . . . Stressless. "I don't check out, I still notice things. You got new toys."  
"I did." There was a pause as if Bruce was weighing the merit of a question. "Was enough?" Bruce was asking the invert and they both knew it, he was asking if it was too much but giving an ease to Clark's pride and his own guilt.  
"I'll let you know when it's enough." Clark heard it again. "And that. _That's_ new."  
"What?"  
"You . . . Laughed."  
"I don't laugh."  
"You don't . . . But you _did_."  
"I chuckle at best."  
"You chuckled at best then. Just now. During too."  
"That was your fav-"  
"I break for you. You . . . Chuckle for me."  
"Hmm."  
"What was that you said about grapes?"  
"Enough talking Clark, sleep."  
"Sleep?"  
"Yeah it's when you close your eyes, stop talking and-"  
"You want me to stay?" _That_ was new.  
"You _can_ stay." Bruce rolled over and tried that sleep thing. Clark followed him, wrapping his arms around him.  
"Stop that. I hate-"  
"Enough talking Bruce." Clark squeezed. "Sleep."


	4. Gentle gifts part 1

"Here." No preamble or fan fare he just tossed it into Clark's lap.  
"Is this . . ." Clark examined it with a mix of wonder and fright. "What I think it is?" Clark might've blushed a bit. Every time as of late it was something new, something more. If there had been any training wheels they had long burned out.  
"It's a cock cage. If you . . . Thought it was anything else I'd recommend getting your eyes checked."  
"Twenty twenty and then some." Clark was still turning it in his hands like it was a Rubix cube.  
"You don't have to wear it if you don't want." Bruce's face was completely void of any pressure or pleading. 

-Earlier in the week-  
"Is that a new alarm?" Wally wove between a gaggle of Thanagarians to poke at Batman's gauntlet. "What you hit your step count for the day? Good going champ!" Wally's waited for a high five even _he_ had to know wasn't coming, though Bruce did punch a warrior swinging at the speedster, that was close enough. Clark heard something over or under the alarm, Missy's heartbeat, she was in pain.  
"What did you do?" It was lucky for Bruce he'd been using ice breath and not heat vision when he turned to glare.  
" _I_ didn't do anything. _She_ broke out." Everyone froze, everyone stared, all eyes were on Clark. Well everyone except aquaman.  
"What he call a time out?"

-Present-  
Bruce knew that was a moote offer, Clark would put it on whether he wanted to or not. _'Is this punishment?'_ Clark stood and that had been a mistake, Bruce pushed him down on the bed with a hearty shove. "I thought-" Clark watched as he had his clothes absolutely torn from him.  
"No need to hide Clark. What? Were you going to scamper away to the bathroom? No. If I've bothered to catch you, I should get to see it all don't I? Should get to lock away that needy cock of yours?"  
_'For what? What am I being punished for?'_

-Earlier In the week-  
"Wally go back to the Hall. Contain her."  
"Wha . . . Me? You sure?" Everyone was still frozen, eyebrows arching under masks.  
"No no I've got this." Arthur shouted.  
"I don't know if you heard her, she's been subtle about it so you might've missed it." Clark did rejoin the fight. "She wants to kill me. Alone in the hall, surrounded by some of the strongest computers that control some of the strongest weapons, I'd rather not give her an opportunity she can't pass up. Don't harm her Wally but make sure she does not leave."  
"What if she tries to kill _me_ with those super computers?" Wally countered.  
"She wants me dead not you."  
"Yeah but what if she kills me because I get in her-"  
" _I'll_ kill you if you don't go." Bruce threw a batarang that did hit a warrior but likely didn't _have_ to whiz so close to Wally's cheek. "Now."

-Present-  
Clark hissed as his nipple was gripped harshly, squeezed between unrelenting fingers, pulled to the point his toes curled in some attempt to keep it in place.  
"Well? Tell me. Tell me to do it." Clark had to think fast, he'd be hard soon, once he was the cage wouldn't go on, he'd have to deny Bruce, have to let him down, he was already being punished, he didn't want to start off letting Bruce down.  
"Put the cage on."  
"You don't want to cum then? You didn't know it to see it. You know what it does don't you?"  
"I shouldn't." Clark was pretty focused on keeping his nipple, he wasn't forming sonnets.  
"Doesn't matter what you want." Bruce could see some of the confusion leave Clark's face, he'd get what he came for, the burden of choice ripped right out of him. "I'm going to fuck you, feel even inch and you won't do anything but leak."

-Earlier In the week-  
"Hello?! Misery . . . " Wally had his hands infront of his face, protecting his fairest traits, waiting for bullets or lasers to rain down on him. "Missy?!" The lights were flickering, that was ominous. "Crazy stalker lady?"  
"Flash?!" She sounded scared, she sounded hurt but this woman had Batman on edge, had threatened to kill Superman, Wally was unsure how to approach her. "Can you come here? Please?"  
"You won't . . . Kill me with your brain?"  
"I'm not a. . . Why would I kill _you_?"  
"Don't have to say it like _that_." And he moved.

-Present-  
"Thank y-"  
"You'll thank me with your cock Cottonwood." It was something small but of any small motion it was Bruce's favorite, watching Clark's hips rise up in embarrassed want, just lust with not enough staunch morals to weigh them down. "After I drive you mad you're going to thank me." It sounded like a threat. "Going to please me." It also sort of sounded if Clark did well Bruce would let Clark fuck him. "You'll want to be rough, but you're going to be gentle won't you Cottonwood?"  
"You . . ." He didn't have his super hearing but the click of the lock echoed, boomed in his ears. "Sure?" He _wanted_ Bruce to be sure, to be telling the truth, he wanted to be able to fuck Bruce, what a gift that would be. Clark could almost feel his palms finally finding purchase in the meat of Bruce's ass, could imagine the throaty noises he'd make once Clark found all the best, all the warmest spots inside him. Clark's cock twitched, strained and then slumped, it's all it could do. If this was a tease, a punishment in it's own right Clark would take it, he would take anything but he could hope it was a promise, a payoff, he could be good, he could earn this. _'I will, let me, let me.'_

-Earlier in the week-  
She was more or less where they had left her, except the door was open, the keypad to the door had been fried, she had a hand behind her back. "Well you got the break part down . . . Forgot the . . . Out. Why'd you bust a perfectly good door and then just . . . Sit there?"  
"To gain trust." She paused. "To prove that I'm not all talk." She shrugged as if she wasn't sure which was more important.  
"Well this is . . . Anti climactic." Wally let out a heavy breath and sat across from their adopted basket case. "I could be out . . . Not babysitting."  
"No please tell me, the woman whose been locked in this room for three weeks how boring this is for you. We could jazz it up for posterity's sake if you want."  
"Huh?"  
"I could run. You could chase me, could brag to Batman that you single handedly kept the hall safe from-"  
"I'm the fastest man alive, you're a. . . hacker with no impulse control. Not exactly a fair challenge."  
"Or we could sit and wait." Misery shrugged, she'd tried making lemonade out of lemons, she couldn't make margaritas.  
"Shazam!"  
"I'm sorry What?"  
"Trying to guess that code word that shuts down the- hasta la vista!" For the first time in two weeks Missy laughed, really laughed.  
"Another!"

-Present-  
"Trust me Clark." Bruce's fingernails dug in right at Clark's collar bone and dragged down all the way down to his hips. "I'm always sure."  
"I'll be good. I will." Clark was starting early letting his thoughts spill out his mouth.  
"Good bad I don't care how you are slut, makes no difference to me. Take off my belt."

-Earlier in the week-  
As the last Thanagarian fell Clark's full focus was gone, yet his feet remained planted. "Go." Bruce didn't like saying it, he felt uneasy, felt jealous, felt guilty. "We'll clean up." Clark was still putting his duty first, the league first, he always would, Clark would always put his own wants and needs last, Bruce had somehow forgotten that.  
"You . . . Sure?" Clark looked at him with such an astonished look on his face, it was angelic, it was innocent, it was a face of someone who deserved everything, Bruce had to try to give him everything.  
"I trust your judgment, don't let your-" Clark was gone. "Gaurd down."  
About a half an hour of clean up happened before anyone spoke.  
"That was big of you." Diana smiled.  
"Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?" Arthur erupted from some rubble.  
"Come on, I've got a bad feeling about this." Bruce let the scowl set in as he walked towards the jet. That bad feeling was that he could not sustain that bigness, he wanted to trust Clark's judgement but what if Clark judged that in those moments few and far between when Clark got what he wanted, Bruce was no longer needed. Could he respect such a choice. He knew the answer and it was no.  
"You have good feelings about things?" Arthur still in the dark crashed into his chair.

-Present-  
Clark sat up at the direction, this did something for Bruce, everytime, that's why he demanded it, every time. It was another small thing, just seeing Clark's hands he was so used to seeing clenched in unwavering fists, work dutifully to undress him. "Need your eyes for that?" Bruce knew Clark wanted to advert his gaze, this was always when superman's pride surged to the surface for one last appearance, where maybe Clark thought on his corn fed conscious for a second. Bruce grabbed his chin and made Clark stare at him, stare _up_ at him. "There you go." It wasn't encouraging, it was demeaning. "Knew you could do it, like riding a bike isn't it slut?"

-Earlier in the week-  
Jealousy was an unbecoming emotion one he'd been scolded for having, because Clark _was_ jealous by nature. But he'd curbed kryptonian senses he could curb jealousy, most of the time. He heard it, she was laughing. He had wanted to hear not a bitter pained chuckle, a real laugh for weeks and she was giving it to Wally. _'He is funny.'_ Wally was as fast with his wit as he was with his feet. Maybe a city kid like Missy found Clark dull, not always though. He'd seen it, that flicker of enjoyment in the simple, the ordinary, those brief moments when they forgot they were freaks, it wasn't dull, it was good as gold, she was fighting it but she wanted those moments too. He found his way to Missy and Wally. "By the Power of G-"  
"Missy you're hurt."

-Present-  
As the leather escaped the last loop Bruce grinned like he had conquered Clark, he hadn't, not nearly close, Bruce was just finally getting a good look at him. "Come on, do I really need to spell it out for you?" Clark was already undoing buttons and zippers, pulling down Bruce's pants. "No. You know what you're here for." He released Clark's chin let his palm ride possessively up his cheek into his hair, rooting there, shaking the man's head from side to side. It was far too full, too burdened, filled with guilt and worries that didn't belong there. Bruce would fix that, empty it. "Clark?"

-Earlier In the week-  
"I didn't touch her." Wally saw the protective look in Clark's face and wanted none of it.  
"Hurt myself." She wasn't showing him, wasn't asking him to fix it, Clark wanted to fix it, he'd feel better once he fixed it.  
"Don't do that again." He sounded darker than intended, he'd fix that too. He had her, he'd moved her, the med bay. "Let me see it?"  
"I'll bandage my-" He had her right hand in his own, examining the electrical burn, he was turning it softly. The look in her eyes, it needed to change.  
"Stop."  
"Stop what?"  
"Go on then. Kill me Missy." He stood, he waited. "Not today? Maybe tomorrow?"  
"I-"  
"You're going to be the death of me yes?"  
"Yes." Missy's face fled from him.  
"Can I make a request?"  
"Huh?" She was still looking off and away, Clark took her chin in his hand and turned it towards him. Ordinary, simple, soft, when he looked at her he could imagine any of those things belonged to him. He tried for a moment to figure out what it was about her. _'Not super?'_ That wasn't it, he had a day job where he interacted with humans, non inhanced, non conditioned humans, Jimmy was fairly ordinary and Clark didn't get this feeling around him. _'Because she's a woman?'_ He had interactions with women, he had loved a woman for a period of time, Lois had known all of his secrets and accepted and loved him back and yet it hadn’t been enough for Clark. He still felt an inability to . . .be calm around her, to let go, to relax. He knew he _should_ , knew he _could_ but it never came and eventually that strained the relationship. If Clark couldn't trust her enough to be himself, then he wasn't loving her with all of him and that wasn't fair to Lois, he'd broken it off. _'She wants me dead.'_ Leave it to Clark to find serenity in someone who had threatened him at every passing chance. He did feel calm, relaxed, simple and ordinary around her, because she didn't see him as a God, an alien, she viewed him as just as mortal as Jimmy or Lois. _'She doesn't want to be saved. She doesn't want anything from me.'_ That was the feeling he got from Missy, his shoulders built to carry the weight of the world felt lighter when he spoke to her there was no want in there, she wasn't asking him to save the world, to save her, to be an upstanding pillar of purity, or to help her uncover some scoop on the city's underbelly, she didn't expect _anything_ from him. _'That's it.'_ He was tense around everyone, even his friends, even his loved ones because they had expectations and where there were expectations there was the possibility of being let down, he couldn't let them down, he was superman.  
"Superman?" Right he'd been creepily quiet for a few moments.

-Present-  
It did sometimes alarm him, Clark had explained it, he understood why Clark got so quiet, yet Bruce was so used to being on the receiving end of one-sided conversations, the shift hadn't become entirely natural to him. "Good." Clark's voice wasn't quite sleepy more serine. "I'll be good." Yet there was still a battle to be fought, that was a defiant statement, he wouldn't _just_ break, Bruce would have to _make_ him. He _wanted_ Bruce to make him, he _trusted_ Bruce and no one else, to break him.

-Earlier In the week-  
"If you're going to kill me. Do it with a smile on your face?" His finger prodded out and tapped at her nose.  
"That's your request?" She seemed to be considering his words, she certainly didn't smile, she got sad. "I don't-"  
"Can I see your hand again Missy? Please." He let go of her face. "All I'm saying is if you're going to kill me . . . Would it kill _you_ to be friendly until the blow comes?" He grinned as he saw all that ration and reason tumble toss and then, just for a second, leave her face.

"Let me see _your_ hand?" She looked cautious and curious and . . . Vulnerable, yet not expecting. Like she would respond well to compassion and comfort, softness but she hadn't the first clue how to ask. What if she never _had_ to? What if she took what he gave her, she couldn't be let down if she had no expectations. She'd enjoy it he'd make sure of it, he would be good for her wouldn't he? And if he was good and she enjoyed it, he was allowed to enjoy it, to feel proud and warm and pleased, not by herculean feats but small gestures, he wanted that sensation. He surrounded himself with nothing but strong type A personalities all fighting for control, he had to command stronger, fight harder, had to _be_ steel. He wanted something small and soft and his, that would come to him not for steel but for tenderness. More than anything he wanted to _hold_ her. He wanted her to curl up in his arms and just lay there content as long as they could. He would have that moment if it quite literally killed him. He felt that lift from his shoulders as he held up his palm and he watched her smile, then it got better, Wally might have gotten it first but he did get the laugh he'd been seeking. "What?"

-Present-  
"Ears as bad as your eyes, I don't care what you'll _be_ , so long as you take what I give you." He turned Clark over onto his stomach, saw the muscles in Clark's broad back start to go lax, even when he drug a matching set of lines to mirror those in Clark's chest, the man didn't flinch, he was soaking up the feel, basking in it.  
"Can. Will."  
"Confident as always boy scout." The belt cracked against those wide shoulders.  
"One." Clark half grinned half grimaced into the pillow. _' **This** is punishment.'_ He wanted punishment, he wanted to be forgiven.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Your hand is huge." He didn't love the pinch of pain in her face as she unfurled her injured hand but it was worth it, she'd never touched him before and now she was. Her small palm pressed up against his and he felt . . . Calm. He let his fingers splay out and then weave into hers and he felt . . . It was similar to that feeling he got when Bruce placed the collar around his throat. That he wasn't super just a man in the moment.  
"Let me fix you up real quick?"  
"This is a bad idea." She had that fear for him back in her face.  
"I don't get to have bad ideas often. If you're going to kill me . . . Can you let me have some before I go?" That had been it, the right set of words, she'd build back up those walls again, he knew she would but in the moment he had her, she was his.  
"Alright." That was the best smile she'd ever given him, the stress and sadness were gone, it was open and accepting and calm. He was slow and methodical, careful, he wanted to be good, to show that his touch could be soft, that her judgment of him had been right, he was mortal, he was a man. "All done." He held up his palm again and while bandages didn't feel as nice as skin he felt warm all over. Proud, right, this moment felt good and right and his, so of course it couldn't last. They were coming, they would ruin it, take her from him, he felt possessive, felt agitated.  
"You'll have other bad ideas. You are relentless." And his shoulders dipped again, she was agreeing this moment was winding down yet she was leaving the door open, he must've done well, she must've gotten something out of this also, she'd cave to his comfort again. He'd get his shot to hold her.

-Present-  
"Thirty!" It was adrenaline, that wobble it Clark's cry, it wasn't panic as Bruce had first guessed.  
"Stubborn slut." Bruce's tongue mapped a particularly red lash.  
"Can. Can take it." Clark's breath settled, he fucking sighed at the contact. "Can take more."

-Earlier In the week-  
"The fuck am I looking at?" Clark was never shy or ashamed about what pleased him, it was asking for it that was his hang up. He hadn't pulled away once the league poured in the med bay. Not even as the still out of the loop Arthur questioned this bizarre picture.  
"Looks to me like that moment in Tarzan when-"  
"Jane and Tarzan touching hands?" Missy finished Wally's assessment.  
"Oh my God! You _aren't_ an alien or someone who was raised by assasins from age eight . . . " Wally's eyes grew wide. " You understand my reference!" Clark thought on this for a moment. Should he feel insulted, was Wally calling him a wild man? Some out of touch brute, no his ego was not that fragile. He laughed, he went further, he played along.  
"Me Tarzan, you Jane." She laughed again for him.  
"Wait _you_ understand my reference?" Wally blinked.  
"I was raised here Flash, on _earth_. You forget that sometimes."  
"I don't _forget._ I'm just surprised your one tumbleweed town had a blockbuster is all." Clark enjoyed moments like this, they did come, when his teammates looked at him as a person, spoke to him like a person. There was often too much to do, hardly ever enough time but every once in a while, they were alloted the space to breathe, to just be friends.  
"Next town over, Pa did have a truck though." Everyone laughed, everyone was calm and happy and enjoying the moment, well there was always the exception the proved the rule.

-Present-  
_'More?'_ It had been ten on each arm, ten on each thigh, twenty on Clark's ass, it had been thirty to that stripped back of his. Bruce didn't doubt Clark _could_ take more. Bruce could start from the beginning, do it twice over and Clark could take it. Even without his near invincibility Clark's hide was firm and resilient. It was did Clark _want_ more? Would Clark get anything _out_ of more? "You've got it wrong."

-Earlier In the week-  
"You're coming with me." Bruce grabbed Misery's arm and he watched every muscle in Clark snap to attention, watched his fingers close in over hers.  
"Ok." Misery tried to pry free but Clark wasn't allowing it.  
"To do what?" Clark wasn't glaring, just staring, not angry, just concerned.  
"I trusted your judgment superman. Trust mine." Some muscles loosened, Clark wanted to trust him, Clark _did_ trust him but he also wanted Misery, plain and simple. "I won't kill her."  
"I know that." Clark did know that, didn't think Bruce that much a monster, he also knew that Bruce when he got creative could be worse than death itself. "What _will_ you do?"

-Present-  
"Wha. . . I can." Adrenaline was replaced with grit and that answered Bruce's question. Clark's offer of more was a step in the wrong direction, it would not help Bruce break him.  
"Clark?" The belt was placed on the end table.  
"I'm fine! I'm good. I can-" That was panic.  
"Not your clergyman Cottonwood." Bruce gripped at Clark's ass, smirking at the hiss.  
"I know." Clark pulled his arms up to his face, burying his cheeks within them.

-Earlier In the week-  
"I need you to trust me." It was worded like a request but it wasn't, merely a statement. "If you trust me I . . . She can be moved out of the containment room." Bruce watched Clark digest the information. "I won't . . . Stop your Tarzan moments." Would that be enough? She still needed to be held under a watchful gaze, he wasn't letting her just disappear out of sight but he'd already had Oracle update the purge protocol on all electronics in the Hall. If Misery's fingerprints touched any keyboard, pad, or swipe screen all information would instantly start deleting itself. It had worked, her Jerry rigging of the key pad to the door had triggered it, the computers were rewriting themselves as they spoke. She'd been smart though, she didn't bother _trying_ to hack it. She went for scorched earth. She'd used the popsicle stick to chip wedged and then smash the screen, once beyond the glass she'd gotten into the wires, crossed them to the point that they surged and short circuited. Went further, had tripped everything, the hall was running on back up generators. Bruce knew if he continued to keep Misery just out of reach Clark would only want her more, maybe grow to resent Bruce for it. Bruce had decided something on the ride back. He would let Clark have her, if she made him happy the best thing Bruce could do was observe what it was she gave him and work feverishly to figure out how to do it better. He would not become obsolete, he would be better for Clark, he would be everything Clark ever wanted because Clark deserved everything.  
"I trust you." Clark unlaced his hands from Missy and looked at Bruce who seemed conflicted. _'Getting there B.'_ He wanted Bruce to warm up on Missy and he would, once he saw they weren't all that different. That was another thing he had liked about her, she thought like Bruce, was calculative reason and Clark loved nudging at that, unraveling it, that was one of his favorite passtimes. Seeing emotions on faces that set neutral at best. He liked being some light to their shadows, he liked even better that he achieved that in different ways to both of them. "Don't let him be too mean." He helped Missy stand up, smiling at the pair as they walked off.

-Present-  
Clark had offered more because he thought it didn't hurt enough, thought he deserved to hurt more. Now that Clark understood he wasn't going to get penance in the form of Bruce's belt they could move forward. Bruce was closer to his goal, to breaking him.  
"Now remind me. What are you here for slut?" Lubed up fingers pressed at Clark's entrance.  
"To take what you gi-" Clark stuttered over the intrusion. "What you give me."  
"Exactly." Bruce was a busy man but he could be patient when he wanted to be. "What happened to being good boyscout?"

-Earlier in the week-  
"Superman?" The others had filtered out of the room but Diana was blocking his exit.  
"Yes?"  
"Is this a good idea?"  
"B asked me to trust him and I do, they'll both make it back on one piece." He nodded confidently.  
"Do you remember the other day when I asked Batman to split a doughnut with me?"  
"He ate the whole doughnut while holding uncomfortable eye contact. I don't know what you were expecting Won-"  
"What are _you_ expecting?"

-Present-  
Clark had given up gauging time in these moments but Bruce had gone through an entire tube of lube fingering him. Why? Was it the same reason he'd put the belt away? Bruce thought he was weak? Needed to be handled with care? He didn't. "I'm open!" He definitely could have worded that more tactfully but he wanted Bruce to fuck him and Bruce apreciated directness. Or at least Clark thought he did, Bruce's palm colliding with his cheek that had only recently stopped stinging said otherwise.  
"Don't be bitter whore." And another.  
"Not." Clark huffed.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Huh?" He wasn't quite sure he deserved both a sigh and a pinch of the bridge of her nose for not getting whatever weird metaphor she was clearly trying to make.  
" _You're_ the doughnut in this scenario. Do you expect him to _share_?"  
"You can't share what's not yours." Bruce would never want a relationship from Clark, what they did was just . . . Something they did. It always had a beginning a middle and a definite end. Clark could fantasize about more but he wouldn't risk losing that escape Bruce gifted him by smothering the playboy.  
"I'm no one's doughnut." Clark masked the lonely feeling attached to his assessment with a smile. "Though I could go for a bear claw. Do you think there's any left in the commissary?"  
"I think . . . You should talk to Batman."  
"About-"  
"Not about bear claws you dolt! I think you're making a powder keg into a nuclear bomb."  
"I think you have your facts wrong." Clark wasn't asking Bruce to share him and despite there being a collar in play Bruce took it off when they were done, he knew he didn't _own_ Clark, there was nothing to talk about. If anything came of the moments he had with Missy he would have to explain to her that he would not give up what he and Bruce did but he had time to word it right, to explain to her how important it was to him and that no one but Bruce could break him like that. He didn't _want_ them to. He'd never ask _her_ to, he wanted Bruce's strength and her softness he wanted both and so long as he was good to both of them he could have it.  
"Do I?! Or am I just surrounded by prideful idiots that refuse to acknowledge their feelings?"  
"You can be both. Leave it alone." Clark pushed past Diana, to go in search of bear claws to fill sour spot with some sweatness.

-Present-  
"I'll do this as long as I like. It's not my fault you agreed to the cage." The mental padlock released, Clark understood, Clark groaned. Bruce wasn't doing this to be cautious, he was doing this to be cruel. Clark overcame the insult that wasn't there and embraced the torture that very much was. Bruce was exploring him so thoroughly, finding and fondling Clark's prostate, if Clark could have cum, he would have. All Clark _could_ do was feel blood surge to his cock, try, fail and vein back up into the building pressure in his core. "Fuck."  
Clark's head went loose again, swirled in the sensation. ' _ **This** is punishment.'_ He relaxed, well he settled in this very teased state he was in.  
"Getting there Cottonwood." He felt a claiming lick up his spine.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Let me see you foot."  
"My foot?" It was already hoisted up, she was handing it over.  
"This is a slow acting poison." Bruce injected it between her toes.  
"Thank you." That was not the response he was expecting and he did blink at her for a few moments before releasing her foot.

-Present-  
"Thank fuck." Clark had been wrong and he was both horrified and happy about that. The fingering hadn't been punishment it had just been a demonstration. _' **This** is punishment.'_ Bruce had Clark's hair in a vice pulling his spine into that painful but pretty U shape he liked to hold him in. Clark loved it, loved everything about it, felt everything more than ever before, he felt so alive as Bruce thrust deep inside him. The only thing he didn't feel was hard, he felt snug in the cage, it didn't pinch, it felt good, just not good enough to . . . Do anything. _'Just take it. Just take what he gives to me. Then . . .'_  
"Selflessness is always the first to go isn't it slut?" Bruce's palm ran deeper into Clark's hair, pulling harder wanting every inch of that moan that was near pleading.

-Earlier in the week-  
"I'm not going to kill you." He had Clark's trust he wouldn't abuse it.  
"I know that." She wiggled her toes a bit, wincing slightly.  
"Then what are you thanking me for?"  
"You believe me. You're taking this seriously. Are being proactive about this."  
"I . . . " Bruce could have let her continue thinking Clark didn't believe her but the thought of actively making someone think less of Clark repulsed him slightly. "He believes you."  
"Then why doesn't he hate me? Like you do. I get that he likes that he can be gentle with me but he can be gentle with anyone."

-Present-  
"What do you think I'm done with you?" Bruce had cum in him, emptied deep and warm and Clark was busy just feeling, acutely aware of Bruce softening, sliding out of him, it felt like that nice soothing hand in his hair. He'd done well, he'd taken what Bruce had given him. He was dead weight, yet movable, smiling as Bruce shoved at his shoulders turning him over on his back.

-Earlier In the week-  
"No, he _can't_." Gentle, was that what Clark got out of this woman? _'Fuck.'_ He could give Clark devotion, he could give him pleasure, he could give him control but gentle . . . Bruce wasn't sure he comprehend gentle. "He's a people pleaser, he wants to give people the side of him they want and more often than not people want strength, they want . . . Super. Even if he wants to be gentle . . . He's selfless beyond parody, he'll go without."

-Present-  
"Clark?" Bruce stared in Clark's eyes, there was red irritation around those blue glossy orbs, Clark had shed tears. Clark was smiling but that could mean any manner of things. Was he alright? "Enough?"  
"Can take more." There wasn't panic anymore, Clark was calm, was accepting, was at Bruce's whim entirely but he wasn't broken yet.

-Earlier In the week-  
"He can't be gentle with you?" Bruce held emotionless, she was fishing for information, there was no way Clark had told her they had any sort of relationship. Clark hadn't even told _him_ they had any sort of relationship. He did think on her question though, Clark _was_ gentle with him, but as a joke, it was still affectionate but he did it to make himself laugh and to see Bruce huff and puff. _'Hate that I don't hate it.'_ Clark liked the rise he got. Would Clark like if Bruce tried to reciprocate it or would he view it as disingenuous? Bruce liked taking Clark's gentleness on the chin, he would miss what they had, Clark would notice, would feel guilty, Clark shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to be gentle.

-Present-  
_'Still want to punish yourself? Stubborn, I'll work that out of you Clark.'_ He grabbed the key to the cage and began unlocking it.  
"Did . . . Did I do enough?" Clark was wanting, he wasn't sure what for, release or redemption.

-Earlier in the week-  
"In the morning I will inject you again, something that will keep the poision from spreading."  
"Not a cure, a treatment." Misery nodded. "So I will have to keep getting these injections. You won't give it to me if I kill superman." She cocked her head to the side. "I offered to let you kill me, the threat of dying won't stop me from pursuing my goal and you already know that." Her head tilted up and she thought for a moment longer. "It's a treatment not a cure." She repeated. "It's to make sure I don't run away, it's to make sure I need to stay around."  
"No one likes a know it all." He pulled out another syringe and injected her in the arm.  
"Ow. What's that one for?"  
"It's a tracking chip." He waited for her to explain his plan to him again but she didn't.  
"No one likes a know it all." She smiled at him and for a brief moment he considered a chuckle.  
"If you do try to test the poison."  
"Batman?"  
"What?"  
"I've been going over every theoretical way of me being the death superman."  
"And?" Bruce's fists clenched, he wanted to hit her, wanted to hurt her, every time she so casually stated she'd be Clark's demise.  
"The reason I've been saying it that way, so weirdly." He hummed in affirmation, no one had made that a point of contention but it _was_ odd, he _had_ noticed it. "I can't kill him."

-Present-  
"What the fuck have you done? Just laid there."  
"But-" Clark was cut off by a kiss full of too much tounuge yet Clark loved it wanted more, wanted everything.

-Earlier In the week-  
"What happened to your can't stop won't stop mindset?"  
"You misunderstand. I've just rationalized that I won't be able to _kill_ him, I mean perhaps I could wait around long enough to find some weapon or weakness but with the resources available to me I cannot kill him. But he cares about me enough that he would save me, would avenge me."  
_'He'd save anyone, avenge anyone.'_ This was her super brain doing it's best?  
"The plan continues, is growing more concise. That's why I was wording it that way. I won't _kill_ him, I'll _be_ the death of him."  
"You'll put yourself in danger, trap him." She wasn't stating this was a revelation but a road map, she'd made a choice.

-Present-  
"Just what I wanted from you Cottonwood, an open hole for me." He had been good, it might not have mattered to Bruce, he might not have said it but Clark felt it, felt it all over from the base of his brain to the head of his cock.  
_'It's off!'_ How long it took for that to click maybe should have alarmed Clark but it didn't, nothing did. "You said I could-"  
"Didn't said you _could_ do anything." Bruce smirked at the fear in Clark's face.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Or get myself killed by someone I am confident will kill Superman, though that would leave far more to chance and I'm not terribly lucky."  
"You're telling me this so I'll stop you?"  
"Yes."  
"So I was right, how you've been acting was a purposeful ploy to get superman interested in you." He watched her mouth open to speak but he made an impulse decision. "Don't answer that. Just . . . Whether it's genuine or not I'd never be able to trust your answer." He watched her nod. "You allow him to be gentle. Until I figure out how to stop you-" And how to replace her. "Keep doing that."

-Present-  
"Said you would please me." Bruce pulled Clark seated by his hair and _he_ even heard it this time, he laughed. "Look at you Cottonwood, smiling stupid like the cat who caught the canary." He shook Clark's head, looser, empty, better. "Used all the lube finger fucking that greedy hole of yours remember?" Clark's face got red and flustered as he very much remembered. "Close to cumming just at the memory? What are you a school boy?"  
"Won't." Clark was trying to bring in calm breaths. Bruce didn't want him calm, he wanted him broken.  
"No. You won't. You also won't fuck me raw will you?" Bruce laid back.  
"No."  
"Don't waste your mouth on words whore, get to work."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote one giant chapter broke it into two. And . . . I did nearly promise I wasn't going to keep writing this back and forth but I kind of like it and probably will keep with it. If it does make things hard to follow or you just flat out don't like it let me know. Feedback and suggestions always welcomed.


	5. Gentle gifts part 2

-Earlier in the week-  
About three days had passed since Missy's break out, the week had been action packed to say the least. He was sore and honestly didn't feel like moving, he was a breathing bruise. He'd go home once blinking stopped hurting. He'd have gone to the med bay but the others needed it more, he could take it, would heal up on his own, pride was a pain all its own. He was going to be here a while so he made himself comfortable as he could on the couch, turned on the TV. It was on some movie channel and before he could put on the game something caught his attention. "Missy?" Her heart rate had picked up, she was only one floor up it was impossible to ignore.  
"Yes?" She had stopped fighting him on the use of her name, rationalized it was a battle no longer worth waging, the damage had been done was what she had said.  
"Can you come here?" A battle that still had merit was being in the same room as him. She'd been let out of containment, she'd been given her own room, the key pad had been switched out for a manual lock which had remained . . . Manually locked.  
"Why?"  
"Because I'm sore from head to foot and while I will get up to check on you it might kill me to get all the way to the elevator." It was a dirty exploitive twist of her task and her terror but he heard her sigh amused, she understood it to be a tease, was either growing a taste or at very least a tolerance for Clark's sense of humor.  
"You don't need to check on me."  
"Yet you know if I've said it I'll do it." He groaned as he tried to sit up but grinned thankful when he heard the lock click.  
Her pulse staid high and he was curious why, there was no threat within miles. She was stopping in the kitchen.  
"Did you want a rootbeer?" And that had Clark grinning wider but a bit confused.

-Present-  
Clark enjoyed the dueling sensations, the gratifying feel of the tight mound of muscle that was Bruce working loose under the minstraton of his tounge as well as the ever present reminder of Bruce's cock. Bruce was a busy man had himself in hand, knocking it against Clark's heated cheeks, it was a warm, heavy thud and it felt wonderful. "I won't need you to fuck me if I can get myself o. . .Fuck Cottonwood" Clark grinned absolutely beaming as Bruce shoved him closer.

-Earlier In the week-  
"How'd you know the root beer is mine?" He wasn't neurotic like Bruce he hadn't drawn little S's on all his food. "And yes please . . . Thank you."  
"Didn't know it was yours. You've told me every detail of every day of your life for three and a half weeks." She entered the room, in one hand there was a root beer the other was a frozen bag of Wally's French fries. He already was sore but he pressed his smile wider, hoping he showed how apreciative he was. "I know you _like_ root beer. Can take a sip first if you want. Didn't poison it." She was scanning over him, battered, bruised, she didn't know where to place the improvised ice pack, she settle for the patch of exposed skin at his side, over what looked and felt like the worst sort of road rash.

-Present-  
"Your cock." Bruce groaned from deep in his throat. "Put it to some use slut." It hadn’t been a tease Clark scrambled up, overly, ridiculously eager, Bruce laughed again. "So proud of you Cottonwood, worried you'd just hump yourself spent on my leg."

-Earlier In the week-  
"If you thought poison would do the trick you'd drink it to get me to do it." That got a smile out of her and a frown from Clark, he guessed right. "I don't mind sharing though, not at all. Sip away." The frown dissipated when the bubbles made her nose crinkly cutely and Clark couldn't help but chuckle, it was worth the hurt. "So what had your heart fluttering?" He groaned as he reached out to take the soda from her.  
"My heart-"  
"Super hearing."  
"Can hear my heart . . .huh." She was frowning. Did she view that as an invasion of privacy? Or was it worse, did she now see him as others did, other worldly, a freak? "That must . . . You shouldn't have told me that. I will use it against you." Fear, for him, he hated that look but it meant she still saw him mortal as anything.  
"Welp you know what they say about spilt milk." He would have shrugged if his shoulders didn't hurt so much. "Must what?"  
"Must be . . . Loud? World must be noisy."  
"Is." It was nearly sad how low on his list of problems that was. "Can focus on what I want."  
"And you _wanted_ to hear my heartbeat?"  
"I . . . Like to make sure . . . People I care about are safe." He let his head rest a bit heavier into a cushion, they were, everyone he cared about was safe, worth every bruise.  
"You shouldn't care about me, you have no reason to, makes no sense."  
"Spilt milk Missy. So did something scare you?"  
"No."  
"You're not hurt." Though he did notice something in her arm that he . . . Needed to trust Bruce about.  
"No."  
"I am persistent and not going anywhere any time soon. Missy I will keep guessing." He chuckled at her affirming sigh.  
"West side story. I . . . Like this movie." He'd had quite the shit day but he'd found Missy in a good mood, this was one of these Tarzan moments.  
"Watch it with me?" She smiled a bit lopsided and then sat.

-Present-  
"I c . . ." Clark paused, Bruce wasn't moving, had he misread the request in some way? No, Bruce wanted this position, wanted to look Clark in the face while they fucked.

-Earlier In the week-  
"I will not let you sit on the floor Missy." Clark did take chivalry stupidly serious.  
"You're not in the position to _let_ me do anything."  
"You can either sit up here with me." It didn't hurt to ask for what you wanted, or did it? No that was just a muscle sewing itself back together. "Or I will roll off this couch and you can have it all to yourself." She had been nice and caring and . . . He wanted more of that, wanted to be good so that she would give him more soft sweet simple moments. He wasn't capable of offering much more than a pitiful roll off the seating but Missy didn't look disappointed, she hadn't expected anything.  
"Can you . . . Make room for me . . . Without hurting . . . _More_?" He shuffled and grunted, he was willing his muscles to move, it would be worth it, he could have what he wanted.  
"Did my part." And she got closer, sat on the couch with him. The moment was simple, normal, it was what he wanted. Clark pressed his luck, let his hand slide up her back draw paternless lines against it.  
"Sup-"  
"Bad idea?"  
"Yes." He knew there was a fine line between him trying to get her to open up to him and him pressuring her, he did not want to be on the wrong side of that line.  
"Am I making you uncomfortable? Do you not like this? You can-" He pulled back his hand in a jolt, her heart rate surged. "Missy I'm sorry I didn't mean-" He could smell them, tears.

-Present-  
"Gentle slut." Why Bruce ever let go of Clark's hair, only to fist at it with a furry was a true mystery. "Don't rut into me like a beast, not all of us are born to take cock." Clark did head the genuine warning in there, Bruce did not bottom often. Clark was determined to be good, to show Bruce he apreciated this gift for what it was. Though as he slid in, gentle, locked eyes, intimate, Clark's face was flooded with fear. _' **This** is the punishment.'_

-Earlier In the week-  
"I'm a bad person, I _should_ be uncomfortable, you shouldn't treat me . . . Gently, should-"  
"You're not a bad person Missy."  
"I've done bad things, will continue to do bad thing, I'm trying-"

-Present-  
Which made sense, Bruce only took gentleness in one way, he didn't want it to be butter soft he wanted it to be a slippery slope. "Fuck." Clark had to clench absolutely evey muscle as he slid slow and careful.  
"Don't you dare cum you fucking jackrabbit. You're here for _me_. To please _me_."  
"Bruce?!" Clark was shaking, it hurt so much to be gentle.  
"Nearly there Cottonwood." It got worse, or better Clark's brain couldn't tell as Bruce's hand reached low, found and fondled Clark's balls.  
"Bruce!"

-Earlier in the week-  
"Does anything make it stop? Other than the word, anything . . . Press the pause button?" Maybe she had a blue kryptonite.  
"Heavy drinking." That made sense but sounded unpredictable. "Sleep." He'd figure something out, maybe there was merit to Bruce's medication suggestion. But in the moment he wanted to comfort her. "Root beer won't cover it . . ." He slowly pulled her down into his chest. "Can't kill me if you're sleeping?" He started up those patterns again, her heart was slowing, her muscles loosening. "Nearly there Missy. Relax for me?"

-Present-  
"Can't bear to look at me Cottonwood?" Bruce laughed again. "Look at me!" It was too much, Clark couldn't focus on not cumming and keeping his eyes open.  
 _'Can . . . Can take it.'_ Wide or not at all, they opened and were absolutely frothing and frenzied.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Bad idea." She sighed against him, she broke for him, she was like a weighted blanket against his chest and he felt oddly powerful. Achey and awful but. . . Strong. He shouldn't feel as high on himself as he did but the tears had stopped, her heart rate was slow and steady and he held her and it felt just as good as he had imagined.

-Present-  
"Look at that face. Must hate it. We can st-"  
"No! P . . . Thank you." Clark thrust in deeper and held there, afraid if he pulled back too far Bruce would push him off. "Thank you." Clark's sweat slick forehead dipped into Bruce's chest. "Thank you."

-Earlier In the week-  
"That can't be comfortable." Wally and Bruce had finally got done in the med bay and shuffled into the main room.  
"What's that?" Clark had nodded off himself but in hearing the solid strong thumping of Bruce's heart getting closer he'd woken up. Clark inspected his human counterpart. Bruce was likely hurting far worse than him, scanning him there were ribs that were broken, he was fairly sure that wasn't exactly where his femur had been last time he checked, his kidneys looked swollen, how was this man standing?

-Present-  
"Thank me properly Cottonwood." Bruce did run a soothing hand over Clark's head, down his neck. "Make me cum, go on. Gentle isn't what you want from me is it?"  
"Doesn't matter what I want." Clark was panting as he did resume the slow pace.  
"Right you are." Bruce landed a playful slap to Clark's trembling thigh and that got a happy yet shaky hum. "Hard to be gentle with me isn't it?" Bruce rephrased the question because he did genuinely want an answer.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Stop doing that." Bruce could see concern pull Clark's lovely features long.  
"Worrying about your well being? You should be-"  
"Yes. That. It's unnecessary and insulting." Bruce frowned because he saw this for what it really was, _guilt_ , Clark felt he hadn't done enough, hadn't protected adequately, it wasn't the case it never was, Clark just . . . Had weaknesses just like everyone else, people forgot that, Clark wanted them to forget that. Clark had given it all and then some, he should have retreated when he by brute force and willpower alone escaped the magic twister the first time but hadn't, Clark didn't flee, instead he used himself as bait and then worse yet a distraction, he'd given his pound of flesh so the rest of the team could mount an offense, yet still he felt guilty. Clark hadn't saved the day and he felt weak.

-Present-  
"Yes. . . Isn't . . . This isn't gentle. . . Rough." Clark did try, kissed the inside of Bruce's thigh and he enjoyed it, he felt good but not gentle, he felt pleading.

-Earlier In the week-  
"You find everything unnecessary and insulting." Clark wasn't saying it to insult him. He wanted to tell Bruce how strong he was, how despite all those breaks and bruises his spine was as straight as those scared over vertebrae would allow and Clark wanted to be dragged over to worship such strength, kiss each bone of his where it peaked into skin or perhaps punished for not defending the bat better but Bruce didn't wish to hear either of those things, he was too sore for Clark's neediness, so it's not what Clark said. "Got two arms B, there's room for three." He opened up his closed over arms and grinned stupid at the absolutely aghast face under that cowl. It was just the reaction he thought he'd get but Bruce took to Clark's affectionate nature only when it was under the guise of teasing.

-Present-  
 _'On my back, Clark. For you . . . If this isn't gentle.'_ Bruce wasn't angry at Clark, he just confirmed what he already knew to be true. _'I don't know how to be gentle with you.'_ He knew the logistics of just . . . Tenderness but he didn't know how to offer that to Clark in a meaningful way, the steps from point A to point B.

-Earlier in the week-  
"There is most certainly not." Was again a predictable response but he saw it, maybe it was just Bruce thinking Clark was an idiot, that was a very real possibility, or maybe because it wasn't the worst picture Bruce could fathom, either way just the very corner of his lip twitch up.

-Present-  
"Good?" The moment was so slow even Clark was becoming aware of time passing.  
"If gentle is rough, I want to see how you handle rough!" The slap to Clark's ass wasn't playful it was firm and demanding. "You can take it can't you?!"  
"Yes." Clark didn't become brutal in his pacing but he did pick up the force behind his thrusts.

-Earlier In the week-  
"I'm just saying it's gotta like . . . Chafe?" Wally was looking at Clark like he had two heads and he wasn't sure why.  
 _'Because I shouldn't be broken. It's not something that should happen.'_ Clark kept on smiling despite the inner scold.  
"What? The suit? Flash it's like a second skin I hardly even notice it's there."  
"Not talking about you, talking about your golden retriever, she's face deep in it." Wally pointed at Missy and Clark had a very primal reaction to that, he sat up despite every single ache that caused and glared.

-Present-  
"Want it on you slut, want to paint you." Bruce growled as Clark's fingers found their way round his cock.  
"Bruce I-" Clark lost his voice as he felt Bruce's body clench him in a vice, all this glorious pressure that was pulling any and all his blood south. His feet it shoot and cling to him, catch and drip from his chest hair.  
"Looks good on you Cottonwood." Bruce chuckled somewhat fondly. "You stuck?" That question absolutely broke Clark's brain.

-Earlier In the week-  
"What did you call her?" Missy had woken up to the sound and likely feel of Clark's voice once the conversation had begun but she'd been pretending to still be asleep. Clark had let her, had felt that a victory that she wanted to stay close, feel ordiray and simple and quiet just a little longer but now she was shuffling to get free.  
"No. Not in a bad way!" Wally took some stumbling steps back.  
"In the good way you call someone a dog?" Bruce shouldn't have instigated further but it helped mend something, that Clark wasn't just over protective with Misery when it came to him, Bruce couldn't map out exactly why it mattered but it did.

-Present-  
"Never said I could cum." Clark wasn't on the edge, he was Willey Coyote, hovering mid aid waiting to fall.  
"No I didn't, said you would please me. Open your eyes Clark."

-Earlier In the week-  
"I get it." Missy was careful, nearly patronizing careful as she removed herself from Clark and if he wasn't bothered before, he was bothered now. "Make sure I eat and drink, sleep. You did yesterday suggest I take a walk to stretch my legs. Like a pet." She shrugged as if that was . . . Acceptable, understood, fact.  
"Well when you say it like that it sounds . . .still bad." Wally's fear of being cut in half by Clark's glare seemed to be replaced with . . . Pity and no one in this building had a taste for that.  
"I always saw myself more as a gerbil than any sort of dog though, you know wheel spinning in place and everything." Missy stretched because she hadn't gone ten rounds against warlocks and warriors and had feeling in all her fingers and toes but Clark saw it, that look in her face again, those words had hurt her even if she thought them to be true and unchanging. She felt a freak again.  
"I don't think you're a house pet." He reached for her but she pulled away. This was the first time he saw her look at him _different_ . . . Like he was different, not like a mortal man but as an alien curious how soft weak little humans worked, how they broke. "It's not like that."

-Present-  
"Can't." His fists bunched into the sheets, if he opened his eyes, saw himself still burried balls deep in Bruce he'd cum, he knew he would. _' **This** is the punishment.'_ Clark couldn't stop his hips from rolling forward. _'I've . . . Been punished enough.'_ Clark wasn't sure he believed that, all he was sure of was that he wanted to cum.

-Earlier in the week-  
Or was it exactly like that? She was stuck here until they solved the whole death of superman thing, it didn't mean she had to entertain him. He hadn't been cruel, far from it but he hadn't given her a choice and Missy sounded like she lived a life of choices that weren't hers.  
"What you think and what I am haven't been the same since you met me." She started walking back to her room.  
"Missy?"  
"Yes." She did stop and turn to him.  
"Is there something I could do . . . To apologize?"

-Present-  
"Open your eyes Clark." Bruce's hand was around Clark's throat, gripping.  
"Don't make me." Clark gave a keening whine.  
"You just going to stay like this? I have work in the morning I-"  
"Please." Clark's hips started moving again.  
"Please what? Pull out eyes closed?"

-Earlier In the week-  
"Why should _you_ apologize for what _I_ am?"  
"Gerbils don't mope." Bruce blurted, no one had every said the word Gerbil with less mirth than he had. "Neither do computers." It seemed like there should have been more to either of those sentences but there simply wasn't, that's all he had to say.

-Present-  
"I . . ." Clark's head tossed unruly. Did he deserve to cum? Probably not but when would he get a chance to fuck Bruce again? When would he get a chance to cum inside him? "Please." He definitely didn't deserve that but he wanted it, he wanted it so bad.  
"Can't read minds Cottonwood, hate guessing games. What are you begging me to do?"  
"I'm begging . . . Begging you to please let me cum . . . Want to cum inside you . . . Will-"

-Earlier In the week-  
"Right . . ." She thought for a few moments before opening her mouth again. "Superman?"  
"Yes?" She was studying him, was on the fence, freak or friend, what was he to her? "Can I have . . ." She shook her head absolutely livid.

-Present-  
"Say it again." Bruce's grip tightened further.  
"Please." Clark's face slumped, giving in to the hold.  
"What? Please _what_?" Harder still.  
"Please, let me cum. Want to cum. Please."  
"Again."  
"Please." Clark gasped, that pressure in his gut was uncoiling, he was _going_ to cum. "Say I can, please let me cum . . . Let me . . . Can't . . . Please." Clark's eyes were watering as Bruce's fingers clenched.  
"Could have you pass out Clark. Could choke you you out." That made Clark waste a hard fought for breath on a groan at such a notion, such a possibility. He felt it, felt the burn in his lungs, felt the burn all over, felt alive. "Not concerned about that? Just want to cum? More important than air?"

-Earlier In the week-  
"Missy what is it?" If she wanted something, if anything would tip her towards them being on even footing again she could have it.  
"Feel better everyone." She disappeared into her room, the door slammed, locked.

-Present-  
"Please, please Bruce, I . . . Yes . . . Please." He'd plead with his last conscious breath, his vision was growing a bit static.  
"Thank you." Bruce's hand released. "There you go Cottonwood, breaking for me, go ahead." The word hardly finished as Bruse got washed unfamiliar sensation of being filled, it was his turn to gasp. He didn't linger on the weird wet feeling once Clark collapsed on his chest.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Now I know you're mad-" Wally started.  
"I'm not . . ." Clark _was_ mad. "We all made mistakes." Wally was allowed slips of the tongue, a drawback to being quick at everything, Superman was not allowed slips, he shouldn't have let what he'd inadvertently pushed on Missy go beyond his scope, he was better than that, he had to _be_ better than that. _'She wanted something and wouldn't ask me.'_ That had been the nail in the coffin of the moment.

-Present-  
"Clark?" He tilted Clark's face, rubbing his throat softly, marveling at his finger prints that held in skin normally steel.  
"Say . . ." There were some stray tears hitting Bruce's chest. "I'm alright?" Clark still hadn't gotten his breath back.  
"You're alright." This had been a lot for Clark, emotional for him. He'd fought this break hard, he'd punished himself the whole way through.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Speak for yourself." Bruce could see how distraught Clark was, he was hurting inside and out and he wanted to . . . Do something. He sat next to Clark on the couch, not close, not comforting, just . . . There. Was that enough? He hoped it was enough. "I hate this movie." He spoke when the silence was even too much for him and that got a reaction, a laugh, Clark loved to laugh. Maybe just being . . . Around was enough.  
"I'll . . ." Wally still hadn't found anywhere else to be.  
"Stand by my guns . . . There's room for three on this couch." Clark still sounded . . . Less than happy but it was Clark, his own comforts, his own wants and needs never staid at the forefront and when they did, they blew up in his face for doing so.  
"I'll make fries." Wally grabbed Clark's ice pack from him.  
"If it makes you feel any better . . . I implanted her with a tracking chip." Bruce wasn't making eye contact, not sure how to fix the unwarranted pounds of guilt on Clark.

-Present-  
"You're . . . Good." There was a fully broken, fully happy sigh at that. "You're good." He let the collar stay on a bit longer, stroked his hand through Clark's hair whispering that phrase for . . . As long as Clark needed.

-Earlier In the week-  
"I saw and . . . How exactly is that supposed to make me feel better? What we both treat her like an pet?" At first Bruce was going to say yes, share the guilt with Clark but that wouldn't work, Clark would find more, just vortex it out of nowhere.

-Present-  
"Am I supposed to be learning something from all this?" Clark was running his hand cross his newly bare, newly mark free throat, staring at the ceiling.  
"Yeah how to take my cock. You're a quick study." Bruce snorted.  
"If it's about Missy It's not the same, you asked if I wanted it, to be held captive, I-"  
"Did I? I don't recall asking you once." Bruce chuckled, he could hear the tape rewinding in Clark's head. "Or did I say what I wanted plain and simple so you understood my motives and you being the competent adult with similar tastes let me have it because it's what you wanted too."

-Earlier In the week-  
"You've treated her like a person, you know that, you just want to feel bad because you got something you wanted. She knows it, she just . . . Doesn't trust the motives at play. Yours, hers, the Joker's."  
"My motives . . . Just . . . Want-"  
"Exactly Cottonwood."

-Present-  
Was he trying to help Clark with this? _Why_? Didn't he want Clark all to himself? _'More important than air.'_ Perhaps a part of him did, always would, but what was important, more important than air, was that Clark was happy. _'I don't know how to be gentle with you.'_ Yet Misery did, offered it in the way that was meaningful to Clark. "I'm not lending her the collar."

-Earlier in the week-  
It was sort of gentle, he didn't kick Clark, just knocked his boot into the other man's. "People may disagree with my motives but they never question what they are." Clark didn't want, no that wasn't true, he wanted but he didn't admit, didn't feel he _could_. Still not right, Clark _could_ do anything. He felt he _shouldn't_ , they only came out when he broke.

-Present-  
"What?!" Clark's eyes grew . . . Sad, Bruce saw Clark sad so infrequently it was honestly jarring it was normally only death that would have that beautiful face in such a horrible way. Was he mourning the death of their play?  
"If you want this you'll have to come through me."  
"Didn't I just do that?" In a blink Clark's features softened.  
"Huh?"  
"Cum through you?" Clark's nose ran playfully along a vein pulsing in Bruce's neck.

-Earlier In the week-  
"Never say never B." Clark's heel bumped back into his.  
" _You_ question my motives?" It was quick, had to be, faster than Wally's ability to burn fries, he threaded his fingers into Clark's hair and pulled.

-Present-  
This was gentle. In the moments after, he couldn't be gentle _with_ Clark but he was in an odd headspace all his own and was more accepting of Clark's. "I hate everything about that sentence." He replied flatly.  
"Hate that you don't hate it." Clark kissed at his pulse. What made the difference? Could Bruce only accept the affection of someone broken? Or did Clark only feel like he had earned it once he'd done so? It was both, it wasn't Bruce's fault or Clark's, this was just how their relationship worked. "All I'm saying is that putting blue kryptonite in the hands of someone who wants you dead is beyond foolish, a risk I am not willing to take."  
"Is that . . . _All_ you're saying?"

-Earlier In the week-  
"I . . . Am too optimistic." Clark smiled but there was a gloomy shadow in his grin.

\- Present-  
Clark rarely stumped Bruce outright. What was he asking exactly? There had been no joke to his words, he'd asked a serious question that deserved a serious answer. "If it . . . Wasn't Missy . . . Would you let someone-"  
"No." Bruce felt his stomach pit. Was Clark only doing this with him because he was the only one with the tangible means to do so? Bruce felt cold all over. Though he'd take what he could get, if he had Clark by hook or by crook he'd keep the tools under lock and key. "I simply don't trust anyone else to see you this way. I'll say it again, if you want this you'll . . ." He didn't want that play on words again. "It's me that will give it to you."

-Earlier in the week-  
"No." Bruce released him. _'You are hope. Keep hoping Clark, the world might let you down. I won't.'_ He let his eyes finally catch on Clark's.

-Present-  
"Knew it." Clark rested his head over Bruce’s chest. "I won't B, this is . . . What _you_ give me. I apreciate it, you have no idea. Thank you B." And he couldn't feel cold any longer, not with a literal exploding star squarely over his heart. "Knew I wasn't asking you to share the doughnut"  
"Do you . . . I can send for some doughnuts." Bruce was confused but inside he was elated, Clark was the definition of a man of his word, he would not loose Clark to Misery. "I . . . Apreciate you too Clark." It didn't sound as good, as genuine and heartfelt when he said it. _'I love you.'_ But Bruce wasn't as genuine and heartfelt as Clark, he wasn't half as wholesome and perfect as his Cottonwood.  
"I'm the doughnut B." Clark chuckled sleepily.  
"Well your head's certainly filled with dough. Shut up and sleep."

-Earlier In the week-  
"Too stuborn." Bruce did think of smiling, getting a decent glance at Clark, at who he was, what he was. Too stubborn wasn't a slight, it was just another thing that made Clark perfect. "Doesn't matter, We'll figure it out. We're a team aren't we?" Clark's eyes grew wide, full of that aforementioned hope.  
"When you say-"  
"Ta da." Wally was back to kill moments and watch movies.

-Present-  
Clark woke some time later. Alone in bed and to a bizarre squeaking sound. "What the hell is that?" He blinked as Bruce entered the room.  
"Seriously, eat some carrots Clark, it's a gerbil."  
"Are you mocking me?" This wasn't a fun tease, Clark felt tense.  
"Give it to Misery." He placed the cage on the nightstand.  
"You're mocking _her_?"  
"Maybe she'll take a look in the mirror and recognize the difference. Pets don't have pets . . . Neither do prisoners . . . Maybe she'll feel more . . . At home."  
"You're . . . _Helping_ me?"  
"I still don't trust her, won't till we fix her."  
"We could fix her and you still won't trust her." Clark yawned and Bruce gave a snort of a agreement.  
"Yet . . . I said we're a team didn't I? You want her and I . . . Have more experience winning over women than you do. Gifts help."  
"You think I need to bribe her?"  
"Gifts are not bribes Clark."  
" _Aren't_ they?" Clark had seen some of the gifts Bruce Wayne had given over the years, had heard of the favors he'd called in on said gifts.  
"Well . . . Sometimes they are. Sometimes gifts are a testament to the fact . . . You want to see someone happy."  
"Are you going to put a tracking chip in the gerbil?"  
"Don't be silly Clark. I already have. Also it already has a name . . .aparently, Charles " He watched Clark's hesitation melt away, watched him laugh.  
"You still think this is a bad idea?"  
"I think it's your _worst_ idea and you've had some terrible ones. But I know things end better for me when I work with you not against you." Making their bond stronger was feeding right into Misery's plan but all Bruce had to do was stay one step ahead of a nutcase, there was no one better suited for this job than him.  
"We make quite the team B." If it made Clark happy it was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be slightly more than 10 chapters and fair warning the next chapter will be far less smut, more plot oriented which I know not everyone cares about so it might be a chapter to skip if that's not your bag.

**Author's Note:**

> This is putting the cart before the horse, I'm basing my story off of my fever dream recollection of the justice Leauge animated series mixed with the most recent live action movies. I have started to read superman rebirth (comics are daunting and I am trying to find a decent starting point) so if I've got my facts wrong feel free to correct me but please don't kill me.


End file.
